Information about Bermuda's court system is now available online — giving the public easy access to such details for the first time.

The Bermuda Judiciary website has begun publishing a weekly schedule showing all the criminal cases due to take place in the Supreme Court.

The site also features past judgements from the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal, advice for jurors on what to expect during a trial and detailed explanations of how the Island's court system works, among the array of information now available.

The internet site provides exactly the kind of information which all Government departments and publicly-funded bodies would have to publish if Bermuda had a public access to information law.

The Royal Gazette's A Right to Know: Giving People Power campaign is calling for such a law, which was promised in 2003, to be passed this year but Government has refused to say when draft legislation will be tabled in parliament.

Chief Justice Richard Ground told this newspaper yesterday it was hoped that Magistrates' Court and Court of Appeal schedules would be posted online in the near future too. "At the moment we are taking this in stages," he said.

Mr. Justice Ground's welcome message on the website explains that it is aimed at members of the public and lawyers alike.

"We are... concerned to demystify the law and are committed to making it more accessible to the ordinary person," he writes. "To that end we will be crafting a series of guides for the layman, to assist when dealing with commonly encountered problems, which will be posted on this website as they are developed."

The Chief Justice says in his website introduction that waiting times in Bermuda's courts are short. "On the criminal side new cases can expect to be tried within three months," he writes.

"On the civil side, the courts always have time to take urgent matters immediately and to set longer matters down at a time convenient to the parties.

"To help support Bermuda's mercantile economy, we have recently established a Commercial Court, where cases are assigned to an experienced Commercial Judge, who retains conduct throughout.

"Although much of our law and practice derives from England, Bermuda has, throughout its history, crafted English models to fit its special circumstances. In particular our approach to civil procedure reflects the realities of a small jurisdiction, giving the Judges the case management tools they need without blindly adopting procedures more suited to a larger jurisdiction."

To access the pages go to www.government.bm, choose Attorney General and Ministry of Justice from the drop-down Government menu and click on Judiciary.