Tele-Justice

User-driven technology steps up legal services for remote communities

A remote community in Labrador is taking advantage of multimedia satellite communications to ensure its residents get fair legal treatment. This innovative use of technology, called tele-justice, ensures that citizens get speedy legal attention - and saves time, money and resources.

A legal right

Canadians have the legal right to a judicial hearing within 24 hours of being arrested. If there is any suggestion of instability or drug abuse, there must also be a psychiatric assessment. This isn't possible if the only judge serving a community works on a rotational basis, flying in Monday and leaving on Friday, and most arrests occur on Friday nights, as is the case in this remote Labrador community.

In the past, people who were arrested were flown to the nearest city (usually Goose Bay) for hearings. Travelling on short notice - especially in remote areas - meant expensive transportation and accommodation costs for the arrested persons and their guards.

New developments

These days, legal hearings and examinations in this community are held by video-conference at the local RCMP office. In 1999, the community centre had been outfitted with a satellite link as part of a Remote Communities Services Telecentre (RCST) project. To provide this legal service, the carrier link is established on Friday night and kept up all weekend, even longer in the winter, if weather restricts travel.

SMART

"The beauty of this project is that it was user-driven," says Jim Hamilton, Manager of the Satellite Multimedia Applications Research and Trials (SMART) Program, of Communications Research Centre Canada (CRC), a partner in RCST. "The community members came to us with the idea to use the existing technology for tele-justice trials, and it has been a big success."

The SMART Program demonstrates new satellite communications services and applications, in collaboration with national and international partners, in an effort to extend access to the Information Highway and to support the Canadian Government's initiative of making Canada the most connected nation on earth.

One such international partnership is the RCST Project, whose partners include CRC, ColabNet, FUTUREWORKS, Telesat, Telemedicine Tetra (of Memorial University) and Qtech Hybrid Systems. Supporting agencies include Health Canada, the Canadian Space Agency, European Space Agency, SmartLabrador and CANARIE Inc.

Travelling to the Labrador community, the CRC SMART technicians set up a 2.4-meter Ku-band, bandwidth-on-demand, high-speed satellite system on the roof of a nursing station.

Results

This system is used by nurses and local community members for tele-medicine, continuing medical education and high speed Internet access. A 2.4-GHz wireless network system was later put into place to extend the satellite link to other local private and public sector agencies. The technicians also established the Local Area Networks and connections and trained people on site to use the system. The RCST sites in Labrador have since been retro-fitted to operate at C-band, and have been incorporated into the SmartLabrador network.

This hybrid satellite/wireless network technology offers many applications for remote communities with little or no infrastructure. High-speed Internet access, tele-education, tele-medicine and access to government services are just some of the applications.

As a result of projects like RCST, applications such as tele-medicine and tele-education for remote communities have already become commercialized in some regions in Canada.

At CRC, work is currently focused on demonstration of more advanced multimedia applications that will become commercially feasible with the next generation of Ka-Band satellites.

"Innovative uses of technology are opening up new worlds of opportunities and services for Canadians across the country," says Jim Hamilton.

For more information, contact Jim Hamilton, Program Manager, SMART, or Michelle Mayer, Project Coordinator, SMART.