Audio recording
in Polish courts
-a lesson from E-Court
Thessaloniki
October 24th , 2008
IST PROJECT
Information society technologies PROGRAMME
Commission of the European Communities
DIRECTORATE GENERAL XII
e-Court
2001-2003
The first e-courtroom in the country
The speed of court proceedings and
quality of records
• Manual handwriting
v. A/V record
• Elimination of
dictation
• Accuracy of
minutes
E-Court prototype
• An added-value information (multimedia
and multilingual trial documents)
• Possibility to remotly retrieve information
about public trials, verdicts etc.
Facilitation on work with court documents
Criminal procedure reform
• Since July 1, 2003 Polish criminal
procedure allows using audio and video
recording instead of written records. A
verbatim transcript of the record must be
attached and kept in the case file. The
parties are entitled to obtain a transcript, as
well as a copy of the record (that means a
tape or CD).
Challenge: transcription
• A need to facilitate work with audio
recording without transcription
• Transcription must be produced by a team
of transcribers
• Alternative methods of transcription should
be applied
Managing teamwork transcription
• Enabling simultanious work
• Protection of confidentiality
Challenge: storage
• Elimination of CD jugglery is a must
• A jukebox solution must be developed
Challenge: remote access
• Without providing parties with a remote
access to audio recording their due process
rights could be violated
Thank you for your attention