The government is moving ahead with a plan to apply the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the judiciary to improve the judicial system, the third organ of the State.
As part of the plan, the government is going to introduce e-judiciary system. The Tk 2,800crore e-Judiciary Project will be implemented after it gets the nod of the National Economic Council Executive Committee (ECNEC), said Law Minister Anisul Haq.
He said the ministry has undertaken the e-judiciary project to introduce digital system in judiciary, automate administrative system and trial process, establish e-court and boost ICT knowledge and efficiency of the judges, lawyers and officials concerned. He further said his ministry is determined to digitise the country’s judicial system to serve people in a better way as Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has recently instructed the officials concerned to set up virtual facilities in all prisons across the country to stop movement of prisoners from jail to court.
The minister said that the virtual court played a successful role during the Covid-19 situation.
Some lawyers and some officials of law ministry said that the litigants would be benefited after the implementation of the project. The e-judiciary system will reduce time and cost for litigants.
According to the project, the subordinate courts in the country will be brought under the ICT network. The case management will become more efficient since different offices attached to judicial proceedings such as police station, hospital and jail, and the people concerned, investigators, witnesses, lawyers and the accused will be connected under a central network, said an official of law ministry.
Talking to the Bangladesh Post on Monday (March 22), Mosammat Nasima Begum, Member (Secretary) of Socio Economic Infrastructure Division of the Planning Commission, said they had received the draft of e-judiciary project from the law ministry for ECNEC’s approval. The proposed project had been placed at the meeting of Project Evaluation Committee (PEC). In January last, the PEC sent back the draft to the ministry, seeking feasibility study and further scrutiny, she added.
Dr Md Rezaul Karim, an official of the law ministry, said the draft of e-judiciary project would be sent to the Planning Commission again after meeting their demands. “We hope, the project will get approval of the ECNEC soon following PEC’s recommendation,” he added.
A lawyer said that it should have been introduced earlier, but it is better late than never. The court proceedings will be conducted through videoconferencing. E-judiciary is one the prevailing methods in many legal systems around the globe as many nations have already adopted the system.
Dr Md Rezaul Karim, the spokesperson of law ministry, said that data centre of the Supreme Court would be upgraded and a network operation centre would be established under the project. A total of 1,400 courtrooms across the country would be turned into e-courtrooms. Micro data centres will be established in 63 districts and an interconnection will be established between the data centres of Law and Justice Division and the Supreme Court, he added.
The law ministry sources said that a total of 2,000 tabs and laptops will be provided to judges, court record rooms will be automated, case records and verdicts will be preserved digitally, and a biometric attendance system will be established under the project.
Moving toward a ‘Digital Bangladesh’, skipping judiciary from digitalisation will be an incomplete journey to the digitalisation. It is high time to implement the e-judiciary system for achieving the ‘Vision-2021’.
Experts placed some recommendations including digital courtroom with uninterrupted internet connection, adequate computers for each courtroom which will help threefold mechanism.Court record room should be modified with Online Database System (ODS) and Case Management System (CMS) as well, judges, lawyers, law enforcing agencies and court officials should be trained so that they can cope with e-judiciary. They said that use of technology has high risk of being hacked, distorted and misused. Proper steps should be taken to tackle such risks. Backup plan should be ready for the urgencies.
