EXTRACT FROM PROMOTIONAL VIDEO: We're building a tool to help. It's called the Solution Explorer. The Solution Explorer will be the first dispute resolution phase of the civil resolution tribunal.

JOHN STEWART, REPORTER: Last year in Canada a fully online tribunal was launched to free up the local courts from a backlog of claims.

EXTRACT FROM PROMOTIONAL VIDEO: It will be a tool you can access online, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

PAULINE WRIGHT, PRESIDENT, NSW LAW SOCIETY: People with a small debt of under $5,000 or a strata unit disputes say about their strata levies and things like that, can go online and get a resolution of their small dispute without ever having to go to court.

MICHAEL KIRBY, FORMER HIGH COURT JUDGE: We in Australia, we'll see online solution courts and for precisely the same reasons that the developments are happening in the UK and in Canada and elsewhere and that is that it's just too costly.

The present system is a Rolls Royce system and we have got to be looking for something a little bit downmarket, particularly for smaller claims.

JOHN STEWART: Michael Kirby says that for many years people on lower incomes have been unable to have their day in court.

MICHAEL KIRBY: We cannot be satisfied with a system where many people just go away from civil or criminal cases feeling they've had second class justice or no justice at all because they couldn't afford to get to first base.

JOHN STEWART: An online court being developed in Britain is also focused on dealing with smaller claims.

QUEEN ELIZABETH II: Legislation will also be introduced to modernise the court system and to help reduce motor insurance premiums.

PAULINE WRIGHT: Well, say you've got debt recovery, you've had some work done by a builder, and you're on the receiving end of that, the builder says that you owe them money and you say you don't owe them money, you could be able to resolve a lot of those things by an online process.

JOHN STEWART: Many Australian courts now use video links where prisoners, experts and witnesses appear on screens rather than in person.

RE-ENACTMENT: Your honour, I should be granted bail. I'm not a flight risk. I have previously been holding down a part-time job.

JOHN STEWART: In New South Wales courts, nearly 70 per cent of appearances now happen via video link - making up more than 80,000 video appearances each year and many courts now accept online submissions from lawyers.

MARK SPEAKMAN, NSW ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Our civil litigation statute says we want civil litigation to be just, quick and cheap.

So down the smaller end of the scale, where you're talking about a few thousand dollars, I can see real potential for online courts to avoid delay and cost.

JOHN STEWART: In the past, most bail hearings involve prisoners being transferred from jail to court and back each day.

It was a slow and expensive exercise.

Now most bail hearings happen via video link where those in custody appear from inside prison.

RE-ENACTMENT: I believe my case worker and my partner to provide a statement via from my family.

JOHN STEWART: There's no doubt that the shift to video link bail hearings is cost effective but some lawyers have reservations about the change.

PAULINE WRIGHT: When it comes to bail hearings, I must say I've got concerns about how fair that can be when you see someone sitting there in prison greens in what's obviously a jail cell, the chance of them being seen as somehow already a criminal is higher than the person who is sitting behind the bar table in court, saying, "I'm a person who is entitled to the presumption of innocence. I'm here to answer these charges. I plead not guilty and I want bail."

JOHN STEWART: Dr Carolyn McKay from Sydney University interviewed 30 prisoners in New South Wales jails about their experience appearing in court via video link.

DR CAROLYN MCKAY, SYDNEY UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL: Many of the people I spoke to found it was a very disconnecting experience and they sort of said it was like watching TV or a part of a movie that was somehow about them but sort of at a distance.

So they found that was sort of a very strange experience; that impacted therefore on their comprehension and their ability to sort of engage with what was actually going on on the screen.

JOHN STEWART: The prisoners interviewed by Dr McKay were involved with things like bail hearings and parole matters.

CAROLYN MCKAY: What the women prisoners in particular were concerned about is that they were there wearing prison greens. They were actually wearing their prison uniform and they had not been able to wear civilian clothing for their legal procedure and one of the women said to me, "I mean, wearing prison greens, that would have to be the worst possible way you could present yourself to a court of law."

JOHN STEWART: But Michael Kirby says that if the video link appearance is before a magistrate or judge, rather than a jury, the appearance of a person on the screen should not matter.

MICHAEL KIRBY: As for the prisoners waiting in prison to be heard, I don't think that is a disadvantage.

I just don't think judicial officers, trained experienced judicial officers, they are not going to say, "Well, this is a person who is in prison, therefore I should not give that person their full rights under the Bail Act."

It just doesn't happen like that.

JOHN STEWART: The emergence of online civil courts in Australia now seems inevitable but the shift to online criminal courts involving jury trials is still a long way off.

MARK SPEAKMAN: There are serious limits to the use of online courts in criminal matters.

Essentially in a criminal matter you have to work out who is telling the truth - the best way to do that is to eyeball a witness in court and I don't think online courts are particularly helpful to do that.

JOHN STEWART: Michael Kirby doesn't believe that big jury trials will end up online but he does see room for some criminal cases.

MICHAEL KIRBY: Not all criminal cases are heard by juries. Most criminal cases are not heard by juries. Most criminal cases are heard by magistrates sitting alone and in, at least some of those cases, one could imagine that there would be cases where the matter could be satisfactory resolved on a textual basis, online.

JOHN STEWART: In the long-term, efficiency and cost might triumph over tradition.