Introduction

The e-Appellate system was introduced and  implemented by the Malaysian Judiciary on the 3^rd of August 2020 for the Federal Court and 17^th August 2020 for the Court of Appeal.  This was done so to ensure that despite the new operating procedures implemented namely the Movement Control Order (MCO), Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO) and Recovery Movement Control Order (RMCO)  it shall not affect the public’s access  to justice.

The stark mismatch between the traditional system and the e-Appellate system is that the courts and parties are required to refer to the digital copies of documents during written and oral submission, thus, hard copies are not heavily relied upon compared to the previous times, the aim of going paperless seems to be efficiently achieved. However, there are circumstances where the e-Appellate system cannot be implemented as the E-filing system cannot be accessed. For example, in conditions where the party is representing himself whereby no lawyer is appointed, the case will then be conducted in the traditional way.

Pre-Hearing Preparation

1. Before hearing, the counsel representing the parties are required to e-file all the documents that are relevant to the Court Registrar.
2. The documents obtained will be downloaded and renamed by the Court Registrar according to the cover page of the E-filing system.
3. An email attached with a Google Drive link will be sent to the parties to upload/ download the relevant documents, 45 days or a month before the hearing date. The link would be made available to all relevant parties to allow easy  access to documents  such as submissions, authorities, all records of appeal with the respective enclosure numbers.
4. Counsel representing the parties will have to prepare their written submission or bundle of authorities according to the enclosure numbers stated in the Google link. Pages shown in the Google link will have to be further referred in the PDF documents when preparing written submission.
5. A Zoom invitation link will also be received by the counsels despite the Google link mentioned above in order to “share screen” during hearing. This will enable the counsels to share the documents referred to during oral submission with the judge.

During Hearing

1. The counsel will have to sign in via the Zoom invitation link on the hearing date, however, the hearings do not start immediately as they will be put on hold in the waiting room of Zoom lobby before their case commence.
2. Internet access will be provided in the court.
3. After connecting to the Internet, the Zoom screen name will be required to be renamed to case number and the name of the parties that the counsels are representing either the Appellant or the Respondent, for example, “02(f)-8-02/2020 (Appellant)”.
4. The hearing will commence once all preparations are completed.
5. The counsels are required to stop the “share screen” function by clicking the “stop sharing” button in order to allow the opponent party to share their documents while they done submitting.

Tips for Counsel

1. Please make sure the screen is “clean, neat and tidy” before the hearing starts to prevent unnecessary mistakes  such as sharing the wrong screen or accidentally revealing sensitive information.
2. Counsel are advised to have documents required,  near, ready and opened before the initiation of the hearing.
3. Again, it is important that the button of “stop sharing” is clicked after submitting as this will only allow the sharing of documents by the other party.
4. During hearing, the counsel are not allowed to refer to their hard copies as there are minor discrepancies in the page numbers and misunderstandings might therefore occur. (Page numbers and enclosure numbers are strictly required to be followed according to the e-filled documents, which are showed as the PDF version sent by the Court Registrar via the Google Drive link.
5. Counsel are advised to ensure their electronic devices are in good condition.

Conclusion

                The “screen share” function plays an important role in the e-Appellate system, as it manages to   effectively allow all parties, counsel and judges to refer to the same page  at the time (provided there are no problems with the internet), this prevents the counsels from flipping through the bundle while it is easier for them to refer to the documents by immediately scrolling through the documents.