Electronic Filing System: Recent Amendments to the Rules of Court and Practice Directions

To create better awareness of the amendments made to the Rules of Court and the Practice Directions following the move of the Electronic Filing Systems to the internet platform, this article was thus written to explain and highlight some of the salient changes, in particular, the changes to the procedure for civil appeals to the Court of Appeal.

Phases 2 and 3 of the Electronic Filing System ('EFS') have been successfully launched on 2 July and 18 December 2001 respectively. EFS has also been migrated to the internet platform. To facilitate the implementation of these new phases and to promote a better understanding of the legislative changes, a briefing on the relevant amendments to the Rules of Court and the Practice Directions was conducted by the Supreme Court for members of the Bar at the City Hall Chambers on 17 January 2002. For the benefit of those who were unable to attend the briefing, this is a write up on the points raised during the briefing.

Relevant Legislation
Order 63A of the Rules of Court provides the basic legislative framework for EFS. The procedure to be complied with for electronic filing and various other services are set out in detail in the Practice Directions.¹ The fee structure for these services are found in Appendix B to the Rules of Court.²

Migration to the Internet and EFS Phase 2
When EFS phase 1.2 was launched on 1 March 2000, it operated on a private EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) network. To make the service more accessible and convenient, we began to migrate the law firms' existing Windows-based system onto the Web-based front-end system and this migration process is documented in para 43E(1A) of the Practice Directions.

With the migration to the internet, law firms can now enjoy the use of three new services introduced on 2 July 2001, namely the Index Search, the Extract Service and the Service of Documents Facility. Using the Index Search, you can obtain a display of the index of the electronic case file. Information such as the filing date and the Document Control Number ('DCN') of all documents filed in the electronic case file are all captured on the display.³ No prior approval of the court is required to generate the index. However, the Index Search does not grant you access to the actual electronic document. To do that, you would need to apply for leave of court to inspect the court file.⁴

Using the Extract Service, you may request for extracts of documents filed via EFS. If the request is made using the front-end system, a soft copy extract will be sent to you once the praecipe is approved by the Duty Registrar. If the request is made at the Service Bureau, a hard copy of the extract will be made available. Certified true copies of the documents can also be obtained using the Extract Service. The detailed procedure for the use of this service is set out in paras 43U and 43II of the Practice Directions.

Service of EFS documents on other registered users can now be effected via the Service of Documents Facility.⁵ The request for service can be made both in the comfort of your office or at the Service Bureau. The facility allows the service of multiple documents (up to 99 documents) on multiple recipients (up to 99 recipients) simultaneously. An added advantage of this facility is the ability to produce proof of service, which can either be in the form of a certificate of service or a status report that can be generated by the system. Order 63A r 12(4) permits the filing of this certificate of service in lieu of an affidavit of service in cases where service is effected on registered users.

I wish to emphasise that pursuant to Ord 63A r 12(2), a document is deemed to be served on the date and at the time the first part of the transmission is received in the computer account of the network service provider unless evidence to the contrary is adduced. The time of service is not dependent on the time when the receiving party actually retrieves the document from his EFS mailbox. This is intended to eliminate any uncertainty on the time of service from the point of view of the party serving the document. Practitioners are, therefore, strongly advised to check their EFS mailboxes on a frequent basis to retrieve any document which may be served on them via this mode.

For completeness, the relevant provisions, in Appendix B of the Rules of Court, concerning the fee structure for these new services are set out in tabular form (see page 26).

EFS Phase 3
The following proceedings fall within the ambit of phase 3 of EFS (as defined in para 43D of the Practice Directions) and all specified documents relating to these proceedings must be filed via EFS:

• Originating Summons commenced on or after 18 December 2001.⁶
• Bill of Costs filed on or after 18 December 2001 (regardless of whether the underlying case is an EFS case).⁷
• Interpleader Summons filed on or after 18 December 2001.
• Notice of Appeal under Ord 55D filed on or after 18 December 2001 (regardless of whether the underlying case is an EFS case).⁸
•  Notice of Appeal under Ord 57 filed on or after 18 December 2001 (regardless of whether the underlying case is an EFS case).
• Petition for admission of advocate and solicitor filed on or after 18 December 2001.

The specified documents (ie documents which are filed via EFS)⁹ to which the court would assign a case number or document number, are defined in para 43G(3) of the Practice Directions as 'Main Documents'. For these documents, a cover page described in para 43G must be provided. Other documents which are not assigned either a case number or document number, but nevertheless require a cover page, are listed in para 43G(4).

With the launch of phase 3, it is possible to file a document by reference to its DCN, a unique number assigned to a document already filed in the electronic case file (see para 43YA of the Practice Directions). This is an enhancement to the existing system which only permitted such references when a bundle is created in accordance with para 43Y of the Practice Directions. Practitioners are encouraged to take advantage of this facility to save costs because the fee payable for each reference made for front-end filing is only $5 per document.¹⁰

A new para 43GA has been included in the new Practice Directions to require the pagination of every single page of a specified document. We observed that during EFS hearings, the solicitor's page reference on the PDF document very often does not coincide with the judicial officer/judge's page reference in the electronic case file. This is because the electronic case file registers every single page of the document that is filed in the system. The problem is most acute with respect to lengthy affidavits where the exhibit separators are not taken into account in the pagination. Thus, a specific direction in respect of affidavits is also included in para 43W(6) of the Practice Directions. These directions have been put in place to facilitate EFS hearings and we seek your co-operation in eliminating this problem.

In a similar vein, we also urge practitioners to bookmark and hyperlink each exhibit in the affidavit in accordance with para 43W(7) of the Practice Directions. While the court has the power to reject the document or order costs in cases of non-compliance,¹¹ the power is hardly exercised because we understand that it may take awhile for the practitioners to get used to the system. However, if the situation does not improve, the court may have to enforce this provision more strictly in the future.

Additional directions relating to petitions for admission as advocate and solicitor as well as taxation proceedings, are set out in paras 43AAA and 43BBB respectively. In essence, pupils may file their call papers using their pupil masters' front-end system or via the Service Bureau. The Practice Directions also require the filing of the declaration, under s 24(2) of the Legal Profession Act (Cap 161), at least seven days prior to the hearing of the petition. The format of the declaration can be found in Form 19 of Appendix B to the Practice Directions. The notice in Form D to be posted at the Supreme Court for six months, in accordance with s 17(3) of the Legal Profession Act (Cap 161), will now be posted at the Supreme Court website at www.supcourt.gov.sg.¹²As for taxation proceedings, parties are no longer required to lodge two copies of the bill of costs with the court as a single copy will suffice. At the end of the taxation, a copy of the bill of costs will not be returned to the receiving party for the purpose of preparing the registrar's certificate. The receiving party should prepare the draft registrar's certificate based on what was awarded in court and submit it to the court for its approval.

Civil Appeals to the Court of Appeal
Before elaborating on the procedure prescribed by the Practice Directions in relation to civil appeals under Ord 57, it is appropriate at this juncture to point out some of the latest amendments to the Rules of Court relating to these appeals.

Amendments to Rules of Court
First and foremost, affidavits of evidence in chief no longer form part of the record of proceedings under Ord 57 r 5(3). Instead, they are to be included as part of the record of appeal under Ord 57 r 9(2)(ca). As for the core bundle, pleadings should only be included as part of that bundle if, and only if, they fall within the class of relevant documents as defined in Ord 57 r 9(2A)(c).

Another significant amendment is the introduction of court fees for voluminous core bundles and supplemental core bundles under Ord 90B. A charge of $10 per page will be levied on the appellant's core bundle if it is in excess of 150 pages, and on the respondent's supplemental core bundle if it is in excess of 100 pages. However, not all documents contained in the core bundle will be subject to these charges. Under Ord 90B r 1(2), the following documents are exempted from the above charges:

• grounds of judgment or order;
• judgment or order appealed from; and
• index of documents.

Accordingly, only the documents described in r 9(2A)(c) attract the new charges. This is in line with the rationale of the new provision, that is, to discourage indiscriminate compilation of documents that are irrelevant to the appeal as part of the core bundle.

Practice Directions Para 43CCC
Paragraph 43CCC of the Practice Directions draws a distinction between cases where the appeal arises from an EFS case and a non-EFS case (see Diagram 1).

Appeals from EFS cases
For these appeals, the written cases (appellant's and respondent's case) must be filed using EFS. A major change in procedure introduced by para 43CCC is that the record of appeal, core bundle and supplemental core bundle (collectively referred to as 'appeal bundles') need not be filed using EFS. In place of these bundles, forms of appeal bundles are to be filed using EFS. These forms are the form of the record of appeal, form of the core bundle and form of the supplemental core bundle.

These forms were introduced to avoid repeated filing of documents already in existence in the electronic case file. Basically, each form is an index of the documents which would have been included in the appeal bundles. Rather than re-filing the documents again, it is sufficient to list them out. A standard format for these forms is provided in Forms 14D and 14E of Appendix B of the Practice Directions.

The following information should be set out in the respective forms of appeal bundle:

• DCN of document;
• filing date of document (unless such filing date is unavailable in the electronic case file, eg grounds of judgment);
• description of the document; and
• where only a portion of the document is referred to, the specific pages of the document must be stated.

If a party intends to rely on documents which do not exist in the electronic case file, he must file the documents together with the respective forms of appeal bundles. A table of contents in Form 14D must accompany these documents. In such cases, the entire submission would consist of the form of appeal bundle, followed by a table of contents and fresh documents. All these documents should be paginated sequentially.

To assist the Judges of Appeal, the Registrar has further directed that the appellant must tender at the Registry, in hard copy form, the following documents:

• a single copy of the record of appeal;
• 3 or 4 copies of the core bundle; and
• 3 or 4 copies of the appellant's case.

Similarly, the respondent must tender the following documents:

• 3 or 4 copies of the respondent's case; and
• 3 or 4 copies of the supplemental core bundle.

For the avoidance of doubt, the documents contained in the appeal bundles tendered to the court must coincide with the documents listed in the respective forms of appeal bundles.

The above documents are to be filed or tendered, as the case may be, within one or two month(s) from the date of notification by the Registry that the record of proceedings are ready for collection, depending on whether the appeal will be heard by a two- or three-judge court. The documents are to be served on the respondent(s) within the same time frame.

The amount payable under Ord 90B will not be chargeable via EFS when the form of the core bundle is filed. It will be chargeable on the hard copy core bundle that is tendered at the Registry after the Registry staff has ascertained the actual fees payable.

The fees chargeable via EFS on the forms of appeal bundles are:

• Court document fee = $8.50 (with front-end discount) or $11.50 (for Service Bureau filing).
• Transmission fee = $1 per page.
• Processing fee = $5 per document.
• Manual handling fee = $20 per document (for Service Bureau filing).

A note of caution: if a party files a document together with the respective forms of appeal bundles which need not be filed or would have been exempted from the court fees imposed by Ord 90B, the fees paid via EFS will not be refundable. Thus, practitioners should take extra care in ascertaining the type of documents to be filed via EFS.

The existing directions with respect to the filing of bundle of authorities apply equally to these appeals. Since the launch of phase 1.2, the Registry has not insisted on the filing of bundle of authorities via EFS. These bundles may be tendered in hard copy form in the requisite copies and only a list of authorities needs to be filed via EFS (for court record purposes).¹³

To sum up: see Diagram 2.

Appeals from non-EFS cases
The concept of forms of appeal bundles is irrelevant for these appeals as the documents to be compiled in the respective appeal bundles would not exist in the electronic case file. Thus, a single copy of the actual appeal bundles must be filed via EFS. Other than that, the directions set out earlier relating to tendering of documents at the Registry and the new charges under Ord 90B will continue to apply to these civil appeals.

The fees chargeable via EFS on the appeal bundles are:

• Court document fee = $0.
• Transmission fee = $0.75 per page.
• Processing fee = $5 per document.
• Manual handling fee = $20 per document (for Service Bureau filing).

To conclude: see Diagram 3.

Chong Chin Chin
Supreme Court, Singapore
28 January 2002

Endnotes