Be In The Know: The Supreme Court Digital Filing System

Ever since its establishment, the Supreme Court relied on manual means of filing for the cases it has handled. In any given scenario, the paper filing system has become rather obsolete and perhaps it would be best to implement a more advanced system, especially now that people have chosen to take advantage of modern technology.

And that is why starting next year, the US Supreme Court will start implementing a digital filing system and will begin with migrating files from paper to digital formats. This is a bold move by administrators, as Chief Justice John G. Roberts himself stated that the court will accept filings as early as 2016. When the time comes, the digital filing system would be adopted in full.

Seeing that rummaging through files embedded in paper is obviouslty inefficient, the digital filing system is a logical move for anyone, especially those handling numerous cases. Keeping track of such cases will also be as simple as doing a search query on a computer.

However, the biggest concern to the system would have to be security. Hacking is prevalent and it is vital for the files to be hack-proof. With sensitive information within reach through modern technology, there is that possibility that they may be hacked and perhaps be altered and manipulated in some way. The court has not said anything yet on how to prevent such problem.

On another issue, at the moment, there’s been no word about the initiative to make every argument within the Supreme Court available to the public with the use of cameras to record footage of every hearing, making whatever is happening in court transparent to the public, especially to those who demand of it.

However, no matter what the considerations may be, it is good to know that the processes involved within the Supreme Court are slowly modernizing. Cases will be more organized and the whole order of things will lean more on efficiency. We can only wait till next year to see changes being implemented.