Md. Mamonor Rashid :
“Justice delayed is justice denied” This statement is very much true for Bangladesh Judiciary. Almost 4 million cases are pending in the lower and higher courts of Bangladesh, of which roughly 10% are lying for more than ten years. This huge pile of cases is causing serious bar to seek justice by destructing time, money, hope and emotion of the parties.
The rule of law and effective legal system are important considerations for Bangladesh and the true digitalization process of our legal management can be an important means to ensure the rule of law for all citizens of Bangladesh.
Though the Government has taken number of initiatives to speed up the case disposal rate, but this large number of cases cannot be disposed in a shorter period without digitalization. The working hours of court are being wasted by manual process. UK, USA, EU (France, Germany, Italy and Spain), Middle East (Dubai, Israel), Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, mainland China, Hong Kong and India etc. are now successfully disposing cases by using technologies.
E-filing and Case Management system stands out as the most important aspect of e-judiciary so far because its main objective is to provide a justice system which is efficient in dispensing justice within a reasonable time. The E-Judiciary contains many advantages which are bound to enhance the capacity of the Judiciary to reach the set goal.
Theory of E-Judiciary:
The E-Judiciary project is about providing ICT so as to enable courts to make justice delivery system affordable and cost-effective. This would be beneficial for both improving the court processes and rendering citizen-centric services. E-courts are aimed to make legal processes easier and more user-friendly. In an e-court, the entire work is executed digitally, wherein, the information that is shared and generated is stored as a database and synched to a particular software. This software can be accessed by litigants, judges and advocates. The primary intention of e-courts is to make the justice delivery system affordable, transparent, speedy and accountable by limiting the paper filings. The key advantages of establishment of Electronic Courts in Bangladesh is bringing in a justice serving mechanism that is transparent, efficient, affordable, time saving, protects the interests of witnesses, reduces the backlog of pending cases and most importantly reduces the number of unscrupulous activities.
Usage of video conferencing in courtrooms is undoubtedly advantageous; its impact is occasionally revolutionary. Magistrates and judges will consistently prefer that those who are bound to attend a court hearing are physically present, video conferencing being used when physical attendance is impractical or unreasonably expensive. Courts will regularly use video conferencing to conduct hearings on procedural matters, such as between the presiding judge and lawyers who are based in different cities. And video conferencing is effectively used for vulnerable witnesses who might be unreasonably intimidated if present in a public courtroom, such as child victims of sexual assault. Video conferencing has also been used to arrange for prisoners to virtually “appear” in a court hearing that is considering the prisoner’s bail application or a procedural hearing, thereby avoiding the expense to the country in bringing a prisoner to a court only for a short court appearance.
When judges cannot get access to an up-to-date set of law books, the next best thing must surely be access to use an electronic reading device and a subscription to law books, usually at a much lower cost than purchasing the books themselves. To give judges that kind of access, all that is often required is to provide wireless internet services to them in courthouses and the budget necessary to give them access to commercially published law books.
The need to deliver of summons along with a copy of a claim on a defendant in any civil or criminal case is the first, and usually essential, preliminary step before courts can validly do their work. Service is usually achieved by handing a copy of the initial court document to the defendant in person or, in certain circumstances, sending the document by courier or through a reliable postal service. In an age of widespread email and mobile phone usage, e-judiciary characters sometimes gamble that electronic media will be used as a substitute for traditional means of service.
The government, as part of its vision to establish a “Digital Bangladesh”, is moving ahead with a plan to apply information and communication technology (ICT) in the judicial system to improve further the legal services. The Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Ministry has taken a BDT 2,210 crore project aiming to introduce e-judiciary in the country whose objective includes the development of enterprise architecture for the judiciary; development of enterprise resource e-planning (ERP) software; upgrading the data centre of law and justice division; upgrading the data centre of the Supreme Court; establishment of a network operation centre; transformation of a total of 1400 courtrooms across 64 districts into e-courtrooms and under the project, 63 micro data centres will be set up in 63 districts except Dhaka; and the interconnection between data centres of law, justice division, and Supreme Court will be established. However, there is lack of awareness about the potential of e-court project among judges, lawyers and public at large.
Development of E-Judiciary:
First and foremost we have to draw up policy for encouraging setting up of e-judiciary. It is critical to draw up a well-defined and pre-decided framework as it can help in laying a concrete roadmap and direction to the e-judiciary scheme of Bangladesh. Another solution to address e-judiciary related challenges would be to upgrade the present state of infrastructure. The present judicial infrastructure does not support establishing the e-judiciary project. The government needs to identify and develop the infrastructure that would be required to support the e-judiciary project.
One aspect that needs to be focused on is the deployment of a robust security system that provides secure access to case information for appropriate parties. The security of e-courts infrastructure and system is of paramount importance. Also, user friendly e-courts mechanism, which is simple and easily accessible by the common public, will encourage litigants to use such facilities in Bangladesh.
The way forward:
The e-judiciary project, if implemented, would go a long way in saving costs and time for the litigants. The e-courts will also benefit the judicial system and will provide flexible retrieval of stored information. This will allow judges to view the proceedings of a previous case or to retrieve other important documents at the click of a button. Data sharing between different courts and various departments will also be made easy as everything would be available online under the integrated system. With the help of video conferencing, the accused and the witnesses can be made to participate in the proceedings from various locations other than the courtroom. This will, to a certain extent, reduce the time required to solve the case and will also be cost effective.
Moreover, the current government has undertaken various measures to improve Bangladesh’s ranking in ease of doing business and to attract investments. The government is making steadfast efforts to ease the foreign investment norms, and revamping labour laws and rules which indicates a positive growth trend in the economy. The government has also taken initiatives to amend the Arbitration, 2001, which, inter alia, will provide quick remedy to parties for resolving the disputes.
Setting up e-courts can bring transparency and accountability in the judicial system as it can bring a lot more judicial reforms in Bangladesh while helping in dealing with the long pending cases. E-courts will prove to be a major step in the evolution of Bangladesh’s legal framework and will play a major role in boosting the confidence of domestic and foreign businesses as they explore investments in Bangladesh.
The government along with Judiciary must also make dedicated efforts in the training of personnel to maintain all the e-data. These include maintaining proper records of e-file minute entries, notification, service, summons, warrants, bail orders, order copies, e-filing etc. for ready references. Also, conducting training sessions to familiarize the Judges with the e-courts framework and procedure can give a huge impetus to the successful running of e-courts.
Lastly, creating awareness around e-courts would through road shows and seminars can help bringing to light the facilities and the ease that e-courts can bring in.
Access to Justice during Covid-19:
The novel coronavirus or Covid-19 has wreaked havoc across the world since late 2019. Its transmission has impacted millions in more than 200 countries, effecting their legal, economic, physical and social realities. In March 2020, the World Health Organisation declared it a global pandemic.
This infectious diseases, to which there is no known vaccine or antidote – has thrown unprecedented challenges to national and international governance systems. The response to contain it has been accompanied by crackdowns to enforce rules, in which many have suffered, as well as increased surveillance, while basic freedoms of movement, human rights, employment, and information have been put on hold. Much of these restrictions are understandable at a time when there is a crisis of survival. Yet the lockdowns have disproportionately adversely affected those who are already the most vulnerable. The outbreak of Covid-19 is affecting litigation and arbitration in various ways, ranging from an increased use of remote hearings to general court closures, depending on the countries and institutions concerned.
UK, USA, EU (France, Germany, Italy and Spain), Middle East (Dubai, Israel), Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, mainland China, Hong Kong and India along with international arbitral institutions i.e. ICC, LCIA, HKIAC and SIAC have taken obligatory encouraging measures to ensure access to Justice during Covid-19 pandemic using video conferencing.
However, Supreme Court of Bangladesh has postponed all the court proceedings amid rise in the number of coronavirus cases in the country. Though our court systems are not digitalised yet still the Supreme court of Bangladesh should set the ball rolling for digital hearing, to hear Urgent cases from the respective judges’ chambers using video conferencing for ensuring access to Justice during Covid-19 outbreaks.
(Md. Mamonor Rashid, an Advocte & Legal Researcher at CM & A-LCP; email: [email protected])
