E-judiciary to fight corruption, enhance efficiency in Judiciary
Sayeed Shuvo : It is evident that people feel most helpless in the court yard and hospitals. These two institutions play vital role in a modern civilized state regarding public health and ensuring justice for the people. Three key institutions define the welfare state need: the education system, healthcare, and the judiciary.
If we objectively assess these three institutions, as regularly reported in daily newspaper, we will get a true picture that is really disheartening. However, the main focus of this article is about to depict clear picture of judiciary. Reports of recent past consecutive years from TIB indicate that justice seekers in this institution suffer from endless harassment, mainly through corruption. Additionally, the incompetence and inefficiency of court officials, as well as the limitations in necessary logistics support and infrastructure, are also significant factors.
The lack of manpower is acute here; particularly, a dire shortage of judges is creating a serious problem in dispensation of justice. Each judge is handling 3000 to 4000 thousand cases on average. Due to this, there is a growing sense of trust gap and a potential standstill in the judicial system. While increasing the number of judges and other supporting staff is essential to overcome this standstill, it is equally important to find alternative solution within the existing resources. As regard to alternative ways, I would undoubtedly say that the launch of complete e-judiciary is the one.
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However, encouragingly the Chief Justice of Bangladesh Dr. Syed Refaat Ahmed on September 21 gave a road map for the reform of the judiciary. He announced zero tolerance against corruption in judiciary and stressed the need for preparing a roadmap to regain the public confidence through establishing transparency and integrity in the judicial process. As part of the implementation of the plans, Bangladesh Supreme Court Secretariat Ordinance, 2025 has already been passed through which SC got both administrative and financial autonomy. An independent body to appoint Supreme Court judges has already been functional.
The CJ has also emphasized the implementation of complete e-judiciary and declared zero-tolerance policy against corruption. He has already established a paper free Bench in the High Court Division. He has also declared making all benches paper-free in phases by this year. The CJ hopes that in the long run, paper-free judicial activities will also be conducted in the district courts. He vows to establish complete e-judiciary system in both higher and district judiciary of Bangladesh. Now the question is how e-judiciary can help combat corruption in the judiciary and improve efficiency and transparency in the justice delivery process.
Corruption in judicial system is not issue only for Bangladesh; rather for whole world. Most of the developed countries of the world took shelter to successful deployment of technology i. e e-judiciary system to fight corruption. As a vital part of it, they emphasised on Computerised Court Case Management System (CCMS) to battle judicial corruption. To get rid of this vulnerable situation, it is actually a dire need to launch in Bangladesh immediately.
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The CCMS denotes to preserve and processed every court documents electronically by using advance computer technologies. CCMS can be used to assist different courts of justice to manage their daily necessary works. Prevention of data corruption is also protected by this system. However, to some extent, some developed countries are still fighting a lot to eliminate corruption from judiciary by using CCMS.
In recent years, the judiciary of most of the developed countries, have introduced ‘Task Events Timeline Software System’ to computerise all courts documents where task events are automatically created and tracked as documents are received and produced.
These systems have been implemented because of recent advances in computer hardware speed, storage capacity, database capabilities, high-speed network implementation, and new integrated applications development environments.
It is evident that often judicial corruption manifests itself in the form of case delay. If one party pays the court officials to do nothing, then justice is not served within prescribed time. Since the CCMS is based on an event–task model, when an event such as a document filing occurs, an automatic task is sent to the appropriate person’s list. Here the individual assigned officer has no scope to make any unnecessary delay. That task then appears on the person’s list as determined by court rule.
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In the courts of USA, the system is driven by a control menu of computer that shows on the screen. The control menu consists of search options, assigned tasks, self-created tasks, and navigation of data by date. The tasks assigned or created by the judge or court staffs are listed in the Assigned Tasks filed. Every task consists of the case number, deadline, and codes that help users recognize what kind of task needs to be done.
If the task is not performed by that person, after a prescribed time period, a notification is sent to the monitoring authority. Eventually if it is not addressed, it is sent to the presiding judge and potentially to a national level of monitoring committee.
However, what if the clerk or judge “pretends” to do something on the system? The CCMS already produces task event reports by system user to determine if work is being completed by the assigned person on schedule. This information can be automatically reported to the staff or judge’s controlling authority.
Another development of this globally built system is document verification. Document falsification, duplication, nonproduction, and delay are some methods used by judicial officials to manipulate paper-based systems in order to solicit and obtain bribes and other nonmonetary benefits. All of these documents can be crossed check via the CCMS.
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There have been instances where corrupt officials have deliberately created documents that introduce errors and delay case disposition. Since all court generated documents are created through the CCMS and electronically stored in the system, it will be possible for supervising judges and corruption investigators to quickly and easily examine and compare official documents from a central office.
The CCMS of Bosnia Herzegovinia is the first national court automation system in the world where creation and storage of court produced documents is a mandatory part of its operation. This means that a court generated document is not considered official unless it is created and stored via the CCMS. These all are the gigantic technological developments in the world’s judiciary.
If the judiciary of Bangladesh is able to launch nationwide implementation of the CCMS in every courts will provide an advanced information foundation for corruption analysis of court operations. This foundation is of critical importance for the courts ability to create and sustain a trustworthy and efficient judicial system in Bangladesh.
In the aftermath of the unforgettable July Revolution, it is high time for this interim government and Supreme Court Administration to respond Chief Justice’s roadmap regarding launching of fully functional e-judiciary system throughout every courts to fight corruption and establish an efficient judiciary in Bangladesh.
Sayeed Shuvo is a judge and researcher. He is conducting research on “e-judiciary: Challenges and Prospects in Bangladesh.” Email: sayeed.judge@gmail.com
