Case Document Submission

With effect from 30 December 2022, iCMS will be implemented for (a) Summonses including Departmental and Private Summons, Driving Offence Points Summons and Fixed Penalty Summons; and (b) Notices including Departmental Notice, Fixed Penalty Notice and Fixed Penalty Recovery Order in the Summons Courts of the Magistrates’ Courts.

Please refer to the implementation notice(s) issued by the Chief Justice currently in force. The information can be found on the Judiciary’s dedicated webpage.

Individual User (“IU”) account holder and Organization User (“OU”) account holder (for Organization Account) may send documents to the e-Court by means of iCMS.

No. PA/SA has to create an OU account of his/her own before he/she can send documents to the e-Court by means of iCMS.

Please refer to Part F of Frequently Asked Questions on "User Registration" for more information about the roles of PA, SA and OU.

Yes. Acknowledgement information (including therein submission date/time) will be provided right after each successful electronic submission of document.

An IU/OU account holder is advised to keep record of acknowledgement information for reference or enquiry. In parallel, an acknowledgement message will be sent to his/her Message Box under iCMS.

No, unless it is directed by the court or required by law or practice direction.

Whenever your Organization opts to transact with the e-Court electronically for a specific court case (i.e. linking up of your Organization Account with that specific court case), you are required to assign that specific court case to OUs before the latter can carry out further electronic transactions and enquiry with the e-Court by means of iCMS. If you assign court cases according to case profile (e.g. Comprising Court of Magistrates’ Courts) to designated OUs, no account link-up of such type of cases will be required on individual case basis.

Please refer to Part G of Frequently Asked Questions on "User Registration" for more information on case link-up (i.e. linking up of your Organization Account with a court case).

To assign a court case to OUs, please login your PA (or SA) user account, select “Assign default OU Account(s) and court case(s)” ➔ “Assign court case(s) to OU Account(s)”.

It should be noted that SA should have been granted with the requisite rights i.e. “To link-up case to OU Accounts (all branches)” or “To link-up case to OU Accounts (same branch)” before he/she can assign a court case to OUs.

Please refer to the relevant step-by-step guides under the subject of “Assign Default OU Account(s) And Court Case(s)” on the Judiciary’s dedicated webpage for more information.

PA should designate one or more OUs as the “default OU” for receiving case-specific messages of court cases. If the PA has not designated any OU as the “default OU”, the first created OU of the Organization Account will be set as “default OU”.

Before the case link-up process, only limited types of documents can be sent via iCMS. Examples for law firms and litigants-in-person are Notice to Act and Notice of Consent to Transact with the e-Court by means of iCMS.

Please refer to the following reference materials on the Judiciary’s dedicated webpage for more information:

1. Demonstration video clip on “Case Document Submission”; and
2. Step-by-step guide on “Case Document Submission”.

Before the case link-up process, only limited types of documents can be sent via iCMS. Examples are Notice to Act and Notice of Consent to Transact with the e-Court by means of iCMS. If the document submitted is found to be in order, your Organization Account is then formally linked up with the court case.

Unless PA (or SA) of your Organization assigns this case to your account, you cannot carry out further electronic transactions with the e-Court by means of iCMS in relation to this case. If necessary, please seek assistance from your PA (or SA) for case assignment.

Please refer to the relevant step-by-step guides under the subject of “Assign Default OU Account(s) And Court Case(s)” on the Judiciary’s dedicated webpage for more information.

You have to assign this court case to designated OUs before the latter can carry out further electronic transactions and enquiry with the e-Court by means of iCMS.

Please refer to A7 under Part B above for more information.

Before the case link-up process, only limited types of documents can be sent via iCMS. Examples are Notice to Act and Notice of Consent to Transact with the e-Court by means of iCMS.

If the document submitted is found to be in order, your IU Account is then formally linked up with the court case. You may proceed to send other documents to the Court as necessary.

Please refer to the following reference materials on the Judiciary’s dedicated webpage for more information:

1. Demonstration video clip on “Case Document Submission”; and
2. Step-by-step guide on “Case Document Submission”.

No, you may revert to the conventional mode for sending physical copy of documents to the respective Court Registry, for example, the file size of the documents concerned is too large for submission.

Please refer to A22 for the limit on file size for submission of documents by means of iCMS.

After the case link-up process, more documents can be sent via iCMS.

Please refer to the demonstration video clip on “Case Document Submission” on the Judiciary’s dedicated webpage for more information.

Set out below are some sample documents which can be sent via iCMS after case link-up for reference:

1. Application for Adjournment/change of hearing date
2. Pre-Trial Review Questionnaire
3. Skeleton Submissions

Yes. Click “Add Document” to file any additional documents and each transaction may contain documents of less than 50MB in total.

If there is urgency in the matter, it is suggested approaching the respective Court Registry and submitting the document in conventional mode.

If a document is rejected for submission, the IU/OU account holder will receive a message from the e-Court in his/her Message Box informing him/her of the reason for rejection. He/She may have to take appropriate remedial steps including re-transmitting the document to the e-Court via iCMS.

Should the document be accepted for submission in a subsequent transaction, the system confirmation will only link with the submission time of the subsequent transaction but not the first failed transaction.

After uploading the document file, IU/OU account holder can preview the document image using “preview feature”.

Please refer to the following reference materials on the Judiciary’s dedicated webpage for more information:

1. Demonstration video clip on “Case Document Submission”; and
2. Step-by-step guide on “Case Document Submission”.

Similar to the conventional mode, when an incorrect document has been sent to the e-Court by means of iCMS, IU/OU account holder may consider taking out an appropriate application to seek relief from the e-Court.

If you attempt to send a document to the e-Court via iCMS within a permitted period but are unable to do so because of system problem of iCMS, you may consider taking out an application to seek relief under the relevant legislation.

In any event, you should avoid last minute submission and may resort to conventional mode of sending documents to the e-Court if necessary.

The acceptable file format (or the “save as type”) of documents shall be “WORD” (.docx or .doc), “Plain Text Format” (TXT), “Rich Text Format” (RTF) and “Portable Document Format” (PDF).

Please refer to the “Administrative Instructions on Detailed Technical Requirements for using the Judiciary’s integrated Court Case Management System” for more information.

A maximum totaling up to 50MB may be filed in each transaction.

Any electronic submissions received during the closure period of the respective Court Registry would be deemed to have been received at the time when the respective Court Registry is next normally open to the public.

Opening hours of the Registry are as follows:

Example 1: If the transmission of a document to the e-Court on a business day is completed at 10:00 am, the submission time will be 10:00 am. The official filing time of the document is 10:00 am.

Example 2: If the transmission of a document to the e-Court is completed at 7:00 pm on a Monday, the submission time will be 7:00 pm. If the Registry opens at 8:45 am the next day, the receiving time will be 8:45 am on Tuesday. The official filing time of the document is 8:45 am on Tuesday.

The official time of receipt of the documents is the time of completion of the whole transaction but not the time of the submission of the first document.

If the whole transaction is completed after the opening hours of the respective Court Registry, i.e. after 5:30 pm, such transaction will be regarded as being received at the time when the respective Court Registry is next normally open to the public.

You will receive a message of acknowledgement right after each successful electronic submission of document.

The submission date/time shown in the acknowledgement denotes the submission time of the document.

The document would be deemed to have been received at the time when the respective Court Registry is next normally open to the public.

The messages will be retained in the Message Box for 28 days after they are read. And unread message(s) will be deleted after 90 days from the date of message. You may print or download the messages for own retention and reference as you deem necessary.

As a default arrangement, a reminder notification will be sent to your email address at day-end each day when there is/are unread message(s) in your Message Box.

In addition, you may choose to receive individual email notification upon arrival of each message in your Message Box.