ECMS Terms of Use


ECMS Terms of Use

1.   Terms
The Courts Administration Authority of South Australia (we, us and our) operates an electronic court management system (ECMS) that collects, stores and processes information and documentation for court matters electronically. We make this available to you through CourtSA at https://courtsa.courts.sa.gov.au
Your use of ECMS and access to CourtSA is subject to:

(together, the CourtSA Terms).

By accessing and using CourtSA, including registering for a User Account (see section 2 below) through CourtSA, you are taken to have read, accepted and agreed to be bound by these CourtSA Terms. If you do not accept these CourtSA Terms, you must immediately stop using CourtSA.

We may vary these CourtSA Terms at any time by publishing amended CourtSA Terms on our website. You will be taken to have accepted the amended CourtSA Terms if you continue to use CourtSA after they have been published. We may also vary the functionality or operation of CourtSA itself.

It is important that you carefully review the CourtSA Terms regularly. There may be serious consequences for breaching the CourtSA Terms, including criminal liability in some cases.

2.   Registration
Individuals, law firms and organisations may register their details with us and create an account (User Account) to use CourtSA. When creating a User Account, you must provide accurate and complete information.

You must keep your login information secure and confidential. It is important that you do not share this information with anyone (unless they are an Authorised User as described below). You are responsible for any use of or access to CourtSA via your User Account, even if the access is by somebody else.

You may permit a third party to use your User Account, such as an employee, colleague, or a person you ask to assist you to use CourtSA (Authorised User). In that case, the person whose name and details are listed on the User Account will be personally and solely responsible for the actions of an Authorised User.

If you suspect that there has been unauthorised use of your User Account, or any other breach of security, you should notify us as soon as possible by sending us an email at enquiry@courts.sa.gov.au.

3.   Availability
CourtSA has been implemented in an environment that is designed to provide a high level of availability. We will endeavour to make it available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, however, CourtSA is provided as-is and we do not promise or guarantee that it will always be available, uninterrupted or fault free.

There may be times where you will not be able to access CourtSA. This might be due to planned system maintenance. In that case, we will try to provide advance notice where possible and undertake maintenance activities outside office hours. In other cases, maintenance may be required to address an emergency or unexpected error or interruption with the CourtSA system. In that case, we will make available details of the expected period of interruption and provide updates where that information is reasonably known to us.

You should ensure that you maintain access to alternative options to CourtSA for urgent or time sensitive tasks. If CourtSA is unavailable for any reason, it is your responsibility to make alternative arrangements for the submission of documents or any other actions that would otherwise be performed through CourtSA in accordance with the rules and procedures of the applicable Court.

We are not liable to you or to any other person if CourtSA becomes temporarily or permanently unavailable.

4.   Use of CourtSA
You agree to only use CourtSA in accordance with, and for the purposes contemplated by, these CourtSA Terms. Your continued access to and use of CourtSA is subject to your ongoing compliance with the CourtSA Terms.

You must not, directly or indirectly:

  • submit to CourtSA any document, file or information, or otherwise use CourtSA, for any activity that: breaches applicable laws or regulations; infringes a third party’s rights or privacy; is contrary to any relevant standards or codes; or is contrary to generally accepted community standards;
  • transmit to CourtSA any malicious computer code (including virus, worms and Trojan horses) or engage in any other means of cyber-interference;
  • attempt any “denial of service” attack or otherwise do or omit to do anything that may interfere with the operation of CourtSA or detrimentally affect CourtSA or our software, data, computer systems or operations;
  • interfere with the working of CourtSA, gain unauthorised access to any part of CourtSA, or otherwise breach or circumvent any security or authentication measures of CourtSA or any other system, network or server connected to CourtSA;
  • disassemble, reverse compile or reverse engineer CourtSA; or
  • use CourtSA to integrate any application, program, service, software, hardware or product, with and/or into any product, system, application, software or hardware other than with our express written consent,

(each of which is a Prohibited Use)

You also must not attempt any Prohibited Uses, or help any other person to do so.

If you become aware of any actual, attempted or intended Prohibited Use, you must notify us as soon as possible via sending us an email at enquiry@courts.sa.gov.au.

5.   Technical requirements
In order to access and use CourtSA, you will need to use equipment that meets or exceeds the following technical requirements:

  • a device capable of running one of the following modern browsers:
  • IE 11+
  • Edge
  • Chrome
  • Firefox
  • Safari
  • Opera

6.   Support
If you require assistance to use CourtSA, or if you would like to report a problem with access to or use of CourtSA, you can contact us by calling 8204 2444 (or Freecall 1800 571 191) during business hours or sending us an email at enquiry@courts.sa.gov.au. Our support personnel will endeavour to assist you with any issues that you may have.

7.   Payments
Certain functions performed using CourtSA may require the payment of fees. Where this is required, the fee payable and the forms of acceptable payment will be detailed within CourtSA.

If any CourtSA service or lodgement requires the payment of the fee, you will not be able to use that service or lodge a document until you have paid that fee.

We use third party payment processing providers to process payments received through CourtSA. We do not represent or warrant that payments initiated through CourtSA will in fact be received or made to the intended recipient. When we receive a payment we will generate a receipt for you that will be accessible through CourtSA. You should confirm that a receipt has been generated in CourtSA for any payments you make.

Please refer to the Contact Centre regarding any refund requests by calling 8204 2444 (or Freecall 1800 571 191) during business hours or sending us an email at enquiry@courts.sa.gov.au.

8.   Security and Data
We take all reasonable precautions to protect the data you submit to CourtSA from loss, misuse and from any unauthorised access, disclosure or modification. However, we are not liable to you if the data you submit to CourtSA is lost, misused or accessed, disclosed or modified by a person not authorised to do so. You acknowledge that you use CourtSA entirely at your own risk.

We may from time to time remove data from CourtSA, including where we require for our own archival purposes.

We recommend that you take reasonable precautions to guard against the consequences of loss of any data you submit to CourtSA (for example, keeping copies of all documents). You acknowledge that we have no liability for any loss of any data and that it is your responsibility to safeguard any data.

You acknowledge and agree that any information, document or other material submitted or uploaded by you to or through CourtSA (including any drafts that have not been formally submitted) may be accessible by us and our third party service providers.

9.   Monitoring and audit
We may at any time (but are not obliged to) monitor and audit the use of CourtSA by any person through a User Account, including to verify compliance with the CourtSA Terms.

10.   Intellectual property
CourtSA is protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws and international treaties. Nothing in these CourtSA Terms will be taken to constitute a transfer, assignment or grant of any ownership rights in any of the intellectual property rights in CourtSA.

Copyright in CourtSA (including any text, graphics, logos, icons, instructions, manuals and software) is owned by or licensed to us.

By submitting or uploading information, documents or other material to or through CourtSA, you agree to grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual and irrevocable licence (with the right to sub-license) to reproduce, use and exploit the intellectual property rights in and to such material to the full extent we consider necessary to facilitate your use of CourtSA and your dealings with us.

You warrant to us that you have the right to use and submit any information, document or other materials submitted to or through CourtSA. You indemnify us (and our personnel) against any loss that we (or our personnel) may suffer or incur directly or indirectly as a result of any claim by a third party that the use of any information, document or other material submitted by you to or through CourtSA infringes the intellectual property rights of a third party.

To the extent that moral rights exist in relation to anything you submit to or through CourtSA, you:

  • consent to our use of any such materials contrary to those moral rights (as defined in the Copyright Act 1968);
  • consent to the infringement of any such moral rights; and
  • warrant to us that you have obtained those consents from all persons to the extent they have any moral rights in any such material.

11.   Links to other websites
CourtSA, or any material accessed through it, may contain links to other websites. Such websites are outside of our control, and we are not responsible for the use, content (including information, products and services) or privacy practices of such websites.

Any links contained in CourtSA are not an endorsement, approval or recommendation (whether express or implied) by us of:

  • the owners or operators of those websites; or
  • any information, graphics, materials, products or services referred to, or contained on, those websites,

unless (and then only to the extent) expressly stipulated otherwise by us.

If any information, document or other material that you submit to or through CourtSA contains any links to third party websites, you warrant that if we or our personnel follow that link it will not lead to any adverse effects, including but not limited to any virus or malicious software.

12.   Suspension or termination
We may suspend or terminate your access to all or any part of CourtSA at any time if we reasonably consider that you are in breach of the CourtSA Terms. In that case, you will have to make other arrangements for the submission of documents or any other purposes for which you would otherwise use CourtSA.

If your access to all or any part of CourtSA is suspended or terminated, all restrictions on you and all disclaimers, exclusions and limitations of liability set out in these CourtSA Terms will survive such suspension or termination.

If you consider that your access to CourtSA has been suspended or terminated incorrectly, please contact via sending us an email at enquiry@courts.sa.gov.au.

You agree that we will have no liability for any suspension or termination of your access to CourtSA.

13.   Disclaimer
The accuracy of any information contained in or accessed through CourtSA is dependent on, among other things, the accuracy of the information provided by you and other users. Except where expressly stated, we make no representation and give no warranties about the content or suitability for any purpose of the information contained in or accessed through CourtSA. That information is provided without any express or implied warranty or guarantee of any kind. To the extent permitted by law, we specifically disclaim any warranty or guarantee of title, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement.

We do not warrant the accuracy, reliability, suitability or completeness of any content contained in or accessed through CourtSA. CourtSA (including its content) is subject to change at any time without notice and may not necessarily be up to date or accurate at the time you access it.

14.   Liability
To the extent permitted by law, all conditions, warranties, guarantees, rights, remedies, liabilities and other terms implied by statute, custom or the common law are excluded from these CourtSA Terms and otherwise in respect of your use of CourtSA.

Nothing in these CourtSA Terms excludes, restricts or modifies any consumer guarantee, right or remedy conferred on you by the Australian Consumer Law contained in Schedule 2 to the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth) or any other applicable law that cannot be excluded, restricted or modified by agreement (Non-Excludable Guarantee). However, to the maximum extent permitted by law, our liability for breach of a Non-Excludable Guarantee is limited, at our option, to:
 (a) in the case of services, the cost of supplying the services again or payment of the cost of having the services supplied again; and
 (b) in the case of goods, the cost of replacing the goods, supplying equivalent goods or having the goods repaired, or payment of the cost of replacing the goods or of acquiring equivalent goods or having the goods repaired.

15.   Privacy
We will need to collect and use your personal information in order for you to make a User Account and use CourtSA. CourtSA is operated in compliance with the Government of South Australia's information privacy principles, as set out in further detail in our Privacy Policy.

We may disclose your personal information to our third party service providers where necessary to provide you with access to CourtSA and the services available through your use of CourtSA.

If any materials submitted by you through CourtSA contain personal information, you warrant that the disclosure of that personal information to us does not breach any applicable privacy law.

16.   Communications with you
We may communicate with you from time to time, including to provide you with notices or other information relating to CourtSA or your case, by using:
(a) any information you or your Authorised Users supply to us through CourtSA; or
(b) information as registered about you through the Law Society of South Australia.

We may also provide notices to you through our website at http://courts.sa.gov.au. It is your responsibility to regularly check our website for such notices and to notify us if any of the contact details that you've provided to us change.

17.   Miscellaneous
The CourtSA Terms are governed by the laws in force in the State of South Australia, Australia. In respect of all matters connected to the CourtSA Terms, you irrevocably submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Courts of that jurisdiction.

If there is any inconsistency between the CourtSA Terms and any other terms, conditions, notices or disclaimers displayed on individual pages of our website (Other Terms), the CourtSA Terms prevail to the extent of the inconsistency.

Any provision of the CourtSA Terms by its nature intended to survive expiry or termination of the CourtSA Terms survives the expiry or termination of the CourtSA Terms.
We accept no liability for any failure to comply with these CourtSA Terms where such failure is due to circumstances beyond our reasonable control.

If we waive any rights available to us under these CourtSA Terms on one occasion or for one user, this does not mean that those rights will automatically be waived on any other occasion or for all users.

If any part of these CourtSA Terms is held to be invalid, unenforceable or illegal for any reason, the remaining terms and conditions continue to apply in full force and effect.
Unless otherwise stated, in the CourtSA Terms:

  • a reference to a statute, code or other law includes regulations and other instruments under it and consolidations, amendments, re-enactments or replacements of any of them;
  • the singular includes the plural, and vice versa; and
  • "includes", "including", "for example", "such as" and similar terms are not words of limitation.