smart court sofia

463.517-001 - Seminar on Industrial Technology, Slavina Vasileva, ID 2014-25155

Seoul National University, 2014-12-12

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Smart Court Sofia /SCS/ - application for smartphone

Project proposal

by Slavina Vasileva

463.517-001 - Seminar on Industrial Technology,

Prof. Yoon, Hyen Young

2014.12.12, Seoul, Republic of Korea

Address to: Ministry of Justice, Supreme Judicial Council /SJC/, Sofia District Court, Sofia City

Court, Administrative Court - Sofia City, Administrative Court - Sofia Region, Bulgarian Judges

Associations, Supreme bar association, Foundation Bulgarian Institute for Legal Initiatives as

NGO, European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice and all interested parties

Ius est ars boni et aequi! [1]

Contents

1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 2

1.1. Project background ........................................................................................................................... 2

1.2. Project motivation ............................................................................................................................. 2

2. Objectives and goals ............................................................................................................................. 3

3. General description ............................................................................................................................... 4

3.1. General functions: .................................................................................................................................. 4

3.2. Schedule classification ...................................................................................................................... 5

3.3. Additional functions .......................................................................................................................... 5

3.4. Benchmark ........................................................................................................................................ 6

4. Discussion ............................................................................................................................................. 7

5. Expected results .................................................................................................................................... 9

5.1. Time-schedule ........................................................................................................................................ 9

5.2. Stakeholders ...................................................................................................................................... 9

5.3. Budget ............................................................................................................................................... 9

6. Acknowledgment ................................................................................................................................ 10

7. References: .............................................................................................................................................. 10

http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/cooperation/cepej/default_en.asp



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1. Introduction

1.1. Project background

The courts of Sofia, Bulgaria, are the courts with most cases in the country and are most

workload. Sofia District Court was established in 1948 by the Decree of the Presidium of the Grand

National Assembly (GNA) of the People's Republic of Bulgaria. Sofia District Court particularly

is the biggest court and it is consist of a chairman and four vice-presidents and 166 judges [2] (trial

chambers) organized in 3 civil judicial ward, 4 penal judicial ward.

For 2013 these trial chambers hear more than 135 534 cases [3]. For each trial are involved

minimum 3 sides which makes at least 406 602 people engaged in the trial procedures for 2013.

In most of the cases the involved sides are even more - when there is some special occasion and

there is demand for special knowledge – specialist expert take part in the trial, or when one of the

parties want to be more protected and hire more than one lawyer for its case. Sofia district court

have the jurisdiction over all first-instance civil and criminal cases, except those assigned by law

to another court. The Court considered and administrative matters and cases on appeals or protests

against acts of special courts and other authorities. Sofia district court considers as a first instance

cases in the territory of the city of Sofia and integrated neighborhoods, composed of one judge and

two lay judges, and in cases provided by law - by one judge. Its decisions may be appealed before

the Sofia City Court (SCC) and the Administrative Court Sofia City (ACSC).

1.2. Project motivation

From the perspective of one of the biggest, engaged and workload courts and because of that

more difficult to be managed, Sofia District Court needs a systematical arrangement of the daily

cases, so all the judges and the lawyers (1st stage) and society itself (2nd stage) could access their

trial cases easily and faster in terms to be in the court on time. As daily life of magistrates is really

stressful and dynamic, this proposal aims to make information flow more concentrate, focused,

not just on one click distance, but even more closer. It aims to offer to the magistrates and the

society organized and easy way to manage not just their appointment but also their time. In case

of the magistrates the time value is highly appreciated because of the all administrative work they

have to prepare for just a single case. This observation made us feel more confident in making the

assumption that such kind of application is not just extravagancy but more of a necessity.

The application platform would be based on the existing Court clerk system. We find a

number of obstacles in using the existing system. From the perspective of user, not all the possible

and allowed information could be accessed through web-based platform, for some of the

information remains the requirement to go in person in the building of the court or to call on phone

to ask, which is usually busy and more than that the information that could be given through the

phone is highly restricted. As it was mentioned above, it is only a website-based platform, the only

way to access the small amount of data is to browse for the court site, make a several choices on

the site page to find the information that is needed. It’s even harder for handheld devices, because



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it’s not adapt for small-size screens. So instead of giving some benefits the existing system actually

creates more limitations. The last one is simply not applicable in the todays racing, always busy

and running society. The needs of nowadays daily life are more dynamic, flexible and smart.

2. Objectives and goals

In general we found two main points to be objective concern: facilitation of the access to

court information for the engaged figures, as they are listed in Table 1 and increasing the speed for

getting the information, which could be perceived as crucial in daily and highly engaged work of

the magistrates (lawyers can do real-time check-up for case updates). Specifically in the work of

the lawyers, they could have several trial cases in very close time with different chamber judges

in different rooms located in different parts of the building. In case the lawyers or any other parties

to the trial case does not appear on the name call before beginning of the trial they could receive

fine bill for their delay. With such an application they could check the room as they walk, they

don’t need to stop by internet terminal, or go to the first floor where is located the table schedule

for judge chambers. And because of that easiness is hardly to believe that they could be late for

the trial which from its side will save them money from fine.

As the way Court clerk system is organized every trial receive a specific, unique number

including the year in which the case is started, also this number is connected with the number of

the judge chamber who is going to hear the whole trial. That also at first place facilitates the search

process during using the application and at second place guarantees the preserving of personal

information of the involved parties. From that perspective it guarantees safety and accuracy for the

concrete case trial.

The main goal of the proposed smart device application is to gain efficiency of court system

organization. As the current stage of development of digitalization of the extensive information

with which court operates is limited into more statistic access – through platforms for computers

or table board in the main building of the court, this proposed application aims to make the access

to the information more mobile, easy and faster accessible.

Table 1 – Beneficials of the application

1. Magistrates:

1.1. Judges

1.2. Prosecutors

1.3. Lawyers

1.4. In-house counsel

2. Experts

3. Citizen – involved in court activities (initiated the process or participating as witnesses, etc.)



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3. General description

From the perspective of general functions, we considered that Android is more diffused

among the users which are online active customers. Next in the counter appears to be iOS with

12%. The next coming is the Symbian OS which at the market of Bulgaria these days is going to

be replaced from Windows phone. We cannot gather data for both Symbian and Windows phones

but to the best of our knowledge they are at the last position at the Bulgarian market in the

perspective of diffusion among users. That makes our confident more strongly about developing

application for Android and iOS platforms at the first stage.

Table 2 – diffusion of operating systems for smartphones at Bulgarian market

General functions:

1. Application for the court activities

2. E-service (electronic service)

3. Mobile platform

3.1. Android (57%) [4]

3.2. iOS (12%) [5]

3.3. Symbian N/A

3.4. Windows phone N/A (9.2% at the European market) [6]

4. Data – free access through register

In terms of general description of the basic function which the application should provide,

they could be classified as follows:

Table 3 – citation of the functions of the application

4.1. General functions 4.2. Schedule functions 4.3. Additional functions

1. Judge chamber № Next session date Bookmark case / Favourite

2. Trial № Hall number Calendar

3. Year History of the case

4. Status of the case

3.1. General functions: through this general functions users can search for their trial case

by judge chamber number, unique trial number, year of the started trial.

Judge chamber №

With this search button users can enter the judge chamber number and look for the cases that

he/she is hearing.

Trial №

With this search button, users can search by the specific trial number which their case is

received after acceptance in Court clerk.

Year



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With this search button, users can search by the year which their case receive along with the

specific trial number.

The above three will be alternatively presented, so each one of them will specifies the case

more precisely.

3.2. Schedule classification: next session date on which the case will be hear and the

hall (room) number in which it will be hear, history of the case – through which one users are

enabled to search for the previous dates, hall numbers and exact hour when they were engaged in

court activities for this trial, status of the case – this function allows the users to search for available

decision for that trial and in case there is declared decision they are enabled to see the unique

number of the decision and ready to go at the court and take the decision from the Court Court

clerk.

This general and schedule functions should be provide absolutely freely in terms of serving

for the society and to be helpful in organizing daily life.

Next session date

With this search button, users can check for the next date on which the trial will be held.

Hall number

With this search button, users can see the building, hall (room №) in which will be hear the

next session case.

History of the case

With this search button, users can see the dates, hour, hall № of the previous session dates.

Status of the case

With this search button, users can see if the case already has a decision or not. In case there

is no decision, they will receive “Pending” massage, in case there is decision, they will see the

decision number, so they could easily check for it in the Court clerk.

3.3. Additional functions: this functions allow the users to access complementary

services such as Bookmarks – so they can bookmarked specific trial case in which they are engaged,

to make it favourite and easily to open it in faster manner. The next additional service is Calendar

which will allow the users to make their own calendar with all trial case in which they are involved,

so they could plan and organize their time more effectively. This one can be connected with Alarm

function which will remind to the user for the next coming session at set time which the user settle

by itself – day before the trial or hour before the trial. This additional functions could be considered

to be paid.

Bookmark case / Favourite



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With this search button, users can bookmark their cases of interest The bookmarking

function assists your case scheduling process by tagging your bookmarked cases so that you could

revisit them easily later.

Calendar

With this search button, users can synchronize the event details to the calendar of their device.

Notifications could be set to remind the user for the event at a designated time in terms to not miss

the hearing of the case.

3.4. Benchmark

During our research we found out just two similar mobile applications. Their similarity goes

to that they are court-based application and provides information for court activities. The main

differences which appear is between the contents of each application. The SCS application is

strictly based on the Bulgarian court system organisation and because of that reason it follows the

Bulgarian model for presenting information to the public. This is also one of the possible reason

that we considered is drawing the differences between those three application – each one of them

is developed to satisfied the needs of concrete legal system – in case with Nebraska application –

it is based on Common law, Dubai application is based on their legal system which is Civil law

jurisdiction but heavily influenced by French, Roman, Egyptian and Islamic law. From that

perspective of legal system Bulgarian is Civil law system (Continental European law) – this

differences between the legal systems could also draw the line between applicable mobile

applications.

Table 4 – Benchmark

Dubai Courts Nebraska Court Calendar

Bulgaria SCS

Case №

Case list

Chamber №

Name

News

Location / Contact

Date /next/

Year

History of the case

Bookmark

Calendar

Personal status (filiation)

Status of the case

The cases of Dubai courts and Nebraska Court calendar appears very specific in own way.



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In case of Nebraska the information, presented in application is quite enough but the access

to it is a little bit limited – the only way to use search function is to know and enter concrete name.

Although after you enter the name the date, the year, the room number appears, it’s not included

in search engine.

In the case of Dubai there is a lot more functions to explore, a lot more ways to search for

information but the structure and organization of the whole information is not exactly orderly. The

problem is that the access is really complicated. At first glance there is just 4 options, but ones one

of them is open next menu list is quite huge and re-transfer to another list of options. To find

specific case could be long process of listing all possible buttons until accidently hit the searching

one. This application also provide really broader information. This is not a function that our

application aims to face. Our application aims to be easy for usage, with easy interface, quick

access to basic information mainly connected with time sphere – when something happened, when

is going to happen next and where. And the access to this should be quick, not time consuming, in

matters of few minutes, not more.

Dubai courts Nebraska Court calendar Bulgaria SCS

Source: Google play store

4. Discussion

According the table below, we considered specific problematic fields which could appear

during the process of developing and implication of the application. The main issue in the table

below is the lack of information. If some reasons no matter of their nature prevent or hinder the

access to the information the application will use scan program which will scan the internet page

of the court to use this data. In this way won’t be violated any of the personal information in

concern of engaged in court activities parties and all existing already information revealed for the



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citizen will be applied in the application for easy access to it, which is actually the goal of the

project.

Also regarding the information, could be assumed that the confidential and private

information is not protected. That is not the case because in the base of application lies the existing

e-court system and also the main court system which is organized in way to protect all confidential

information – all the names are written in abbreviation, the only information which will be

uploaded is in numbers. Each instituted proceedings (cases) receive a unique number from the

Court clerk system which could be recognized only from the people who knows the exact number.

The names of the involved people are written only by initials in terms to secure privacy data. That

is one of the basic differences with the Nebraska court application in which the whole name of the

person is written and every bad-intentioned consumer could find more easily information for other

people.

Table 5 – process of exploitation

1. Conditions for financing 2. Profitable/ Accessibility 3. Contents from court’s Court clerk system 4. Free access 5. Submitting of the information 6. In case the information is not accessible – scan the page 7. Testing if it’s working

SAS

Usage/

triggering

1.Condition 2. Mobile phone app

3. Contents

4. Free

access 6. Scan of the

page 5. Information permit

END

7. Working

NO

IF

IF

NO

NO

YES

YES

YES

YES

YES

YES



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5. Expected results

The expected results are seen more like real facilitation and perfection of the existing

electronic court system, more security in participating court activities. The above revealed

application claim to satisfy the need for exact, easy and fast access to accessible information

provided by the court institutions in Sofia. Our true believe is that application like this will attract

many people engaged in court activities. The main aspiration to the application is to be easy for

access, to not have any burden or surplus information. The key words for the application should

be: information at speed. As future development of the application is expected to be implemented

in other busy courts as far as this application is considered only for Sofia District court like Sofia

City Court, Administrative Court - Sofia City, Administrative Court - Sofia Region and of course

outside the area of Sofia city – in the administrative towns with bigger loading such as courts in

Burgas, Varna, Veliko Tarnovo, Plovdiv, Pleven, Ruse, etc. In terms to provide good service for

the citizens and professionals, this application project aim to represent the art of the good [1].

5.1. Time-schedule

Table 6 – time schedule for developing the application project.

I II III IV VI VII VIII IX X XI XII

Presentation of

app proposal

Accessing

information

Developing app

Running 1st stage

Running 2nd stage

Offering app to

other courts

5.2. Stakeholders

As stakeholders could be considered as follows: Ministry of Justice, Supreme Judicial

Council, Sofia District Court, Sofia City Court, Administrative Court - Sofia City, Administrative

Court - Sofia Region, Bulgarian Judges Associations, Supreme bar association, Foundation

Bulgarian Institute for Legal Initiatives as NGO, European Commission for the Efficiency of

Justice and all interested parties.

5.3. Budget





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Since the SCS application is in close interact with court administration and ICT providers,

budget shows only expected prices for accessing needed information and for developing of the

platform. It is possible the prices to be different in relation of participated parties. In terms to be

fulfil the expected budget could be also considered candidate for European Regional Development

fund.

Table 7 – expected budget

For Android For

iOS

Accessing information (once) 10000 €

Build and Develop app

4000 € 4000 €

Publish and promote app 800 € 800 €

Running 1st stage (per month) 300 € 300 €

Running 2nd stage (per month) 300 € 300 €

Maintaining the app (per month) 200 € 200 €

Total 15 600 € 15 600 €

31 200 €

6. Acknowledgment

This report is made possible because of the wise guidance of prof. Hyen Young Yoon and

the help and advice support of PhD candidate Simeon Arnaudov.

7. References:

[1] Law is the art of the good and the equitable – dicta by Publius Iuventius Celsus Titus

Aufidius Hoenius Severianus (67–130 AD) – one of the most influential ancient Roman jurist

of the High Classical era;

[2] Sofia District Court - www.srs.justice.bg, retrieved 11.2014;

[3] Annual report 2013 for the activity of the courts – SJC, retrieved from

http://www.vss.justice.bg/bg/start.htm, 2014.09.25;

[4], [5], [6] Pragmatica: Android is the most diffused mobile OS in Bulgaria - Tihomir

Ivanov, 22.11.2013, retrieved on 11.11.2014 from

http://computerworld.bg/45070_pragmatica_android_e_najrazprostranenata_mobilna_os_

v_balgariya

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Rome

http://www.srs.justice.bg/

http://www.vss.justice.bg/bg/start.htm

http://computerworld.bg/45070_pragmatica_android_e_najrazprostranenata_mobilna_os_v_balgariya

http://computerworld.bg/45070_pragmatica_android_e_najrazprostranenata_mobilna_os_v_balgariya