E-Judiciary & E-Court rooms: a potential way of reducing case backlogs
FARHAD UDDIN AHMED BHUIYAN
Having realized the crying need and importance of introducing e-judiciary and e- court rooms in Bangladesh , I, being aggrieved, filed a writ petition in the Hon’ble High Court Division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh and I moved the petition as public interest litigation and after hearing; a division bench of Hon’ble High Court comprising of Mr. Justice M Enayetur Rahim and Mr. Justice Md. Mustafizur Rahman on 19.01.2020 issued Rule Nisi and directed the respondents to introduce e-judiciary and e- court rooms in all courts of Bangladesh within 90 (Ninety) daysalong with a direction to submit a progress report of implementing this to this Hon’ble court by way of affidavit in compliance.
Since, on this matter, the Hon’ble Court has passed order upon the respondents as such it is binding upon them. We hope that the respondents will comply with the order of the Hon’ble High Court accordingly.
Before I dip into the topic, I feel like to outline the concept of e- judiciary and e-court rooms.
In fact, in the existing system,suits/cases in HCD, any appeal to either HCD or Appellate Divisions, Review, Revision, writ etc. are being filed by submitting petition manually with a mandatory physical presence which is very sluggish, time-consuming and risky for the parties and a poor victim from Dinajpur or Chittagong Hill Tracts etc. who has to travel more than 400/500 kilometers toward Dhaka just for filing cases/suits resulting the party(s) to seek his/her legal remedy. Hence,“e-case filing system” and e-judiciary is crying need to ensure the proper justice to the disadvantageous group. We know in most cases in Bangladesh notices/summons are served in paper form to the parties for which notices are concealed, counterfeited and delayed to be served to the intended parties. So, introduction of e-notice service system with e-judiciary will be a time-befitting steps and no doubt that interrupting, expensive and having scope of illegal transaction/ corruption in sections/offices are not being able to reduce the sufferings of litigant people by the existing system even rural marginalized people suffer in every stage by middlemen, court officials and/or touts to seek relief from the courts. No telling to say that if and when,submission of any deciding document / instrument in a case is presented manually in the courts there is higher risk of being damaged, corrupted, concealed, missed out, lost. The crucial drawbacks of the existing filing system is that there are assorted types of hazard and illegal transaction scopes, possibility of file and record missing, hassle of bringing files from section to court rooms etc. which result untold sufferings of the litigants and the Lawyers. Actually, e- judiciary can play a vital role to diminish the case backlogs of an overburdened judiciary and the huge pile of cases which is causing serious bar to seek justice by destroying time, money, hope and emotion of the parties but this large number of cases cannot be disposed of in a shorter period without the introduction of e-judiciary. And, the valued working hours of courts are being wasted by manual process in our country. May be it is a hope and guideline for us that The USA, Singapore, Canada, Malaysia etc. are now successfully disposing cases by using technologies which may give potential benefits to other mechanisms like ADR, negotiation, mediation, arbitration etc.to remove the deadlock of cases of our Courts. It is relevant to point out that the land suits filed by grandfather may be continued by son or son’s son by the passage of generation. Sometimes the parties or crucial witnesses pass away, important evidences decay, years lose, a lot of money spends but land suits remain unfinished.Very true fact is that lack of modernization, slow process of service of the summons which can further be slowed down by the parties concerned indicates a gross poor state of our courts’ administration at all. It is a matter of great regret that in absence of online database in land offices, many land-robbers make counterfeit deeds and documents which lead the weaker parties to a disadvantageous position. Though the Limitation Act, 1908, the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 have specified the time limits but these limits cannot be maintained properly in almost every land suits.Apart from this, our congested court rooms are not largely up-to-date. Most of the court room has no internet access, video conferencing management, e-cause list, online submission system, modern database etc. which causes delay, mismanagement, corruption, unnecessary expenses in the cases. I think and strongly believe that the digital court room must have uninterrupted internet connection. Video conferencing may help to hear and try the criminals or defendants, complainants or plaintiffs and witnesses from jail custody or distant area. It is highly risky to escort terrorist high-commanders, political leaders or leading criminals to court from jail custody. In Bangladesh, an armed gang attacked police van to snatch three convicted JMB leaders in Mymensinghon 23 February, 2014 and another death penalty convicted Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami leader Mufti Abdul Hannan and 20 others were tried to be freed by attacks with hand-made bombs while cop’s van was returning from Court to the jail on 6 March, 2017 in Gazipur. So, video conferencing can help to smoothen trial of such criminals. Also, adequate computers for each courtroom should be set which will help threefold mechanism for the judges, attorneys/prosecutors , litigants as well as the court officers. Multimedia projector, camera, monitor, electronic recorder, VCR/DVD player, printer etc. are essential to simplify and quicken the court activities and make proper use of working hours of the court. Besides, data analyzer may be inserted so that it would help to analyze thousands of data within a second. Using different cameras, especially the evidence camera which can instantly convert a paper document or physical exhibit to an e-image should be ensured.In this modern era for filing a case, it is immaterial of human presence in the court which causes unnecessary sufferings to the people. In e-case filing system, a person and/ or an advocate on his/her behalf may create a personal account with secured password where every updates of the case(s) can be provided within a moment. Thus, this service can be reached up to peoples’ bedroom. Different countries like USA, UK, Singapore etc. have already started to use e-filing. Bangladesh has reached 66.779 million internet subscribers till January, 2017which opened the door of digitalization easily. Bangladesh has reached total 129.584 million mobile subscribers till February, 2017 and till date it has boomed and the cause list of particular cases may be sent via SMS to the common people. Any latest update, query or information may reach within a short period of time by SMS to the litigant and /or their appointed lawyers. The following guidelines should be considered by the respondents to make the way of e-judiciary smoother:
Firstly, independence and separation of judiciary must be ensured fully.
And then, the whole old-fashioned courtrooms should be accommodated with new technologies.
Thirdly, court record room should be modified with Online Database System (ODS) and case Management System (CMS) as well.
There after, adequate budget should be allocated for the judiciary.
After that, judges, lawyers, law enforcing agencies and court officials should be trained so that they can cope with e-judiciary.
Likewise, use of technology has high risk of being hacked, distorted and misused. Proper steps should be taken to tackle such risks.
In like manner, as Bangladesh has lack of essential technologies, advance technologies, services, experts should be exported.
Following this, required laws, especially the Evidence Act, 1872 should be amended making parallel with e- judicial system and backup plan should be ready for the urgencies.
Beside this, national and sub-national committee must be formed to control and utilize the whole scheme and to hear the grievance of the people and People must be made aware of and cooperative to use the e-judiciary.
It is more or less true in case of most of the learned advocates’ practice life that in the existing system, bringing case records, sending the orders, summons, judgment to the concerned court or parties require long days and years causing the justice denied in delay and the illegal transactions and corruption scope originates chasing the litigants in a troublesome situation. It is a good presumption that there will require less number of workforce in the sections /offices for dealing with the cases, orders, management etc.in the courts, if e-judiciary is introduced in Bangladesh. However,through the introduction of e-judiciary, litigant people will get one stop services and there will have no hassle for Tadbir of the cases and thus filing of the false and fabricated cases will get reduced markedly.
Eventually, e-court or electronic Court means a location in which matters of law are adjudicated upon, in the presence of qualified Judge(s) and which has a well-developed technical infrastructure. An e-court is, however, different from a computerized court. In the case of e-court, everything is done in an “online environment” through the use of Internet and other Information and Communication Technology (ICT), whereas a computerized court is nothing more than a court having computers and basic level hardware and software and e-courts 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 and e –judiciary is to make the justice delivery system affordable, transparent, speedy and accountable.E-judiciary may bring a radical change in the field of the administration of justice moving toward a ‘Digital Bangladesh’ and common people will automatically habituate with the e-judiciary by the passage of time if it is introduced. Canada, Australia, Malaysia, U S A, U.K and most of the European countries have already introduced e-judiciary which is the demand of the time to be introduced in Bangladesh too.Based on the concept of ‘green court’ with less usage of papers, two high courts in Kuala Lumpur were used as pilot projects in 2004. The complete E-Court system in Malaysia began in March 2011. Four types of mechanism that form the E-Court are Video Conferencing System, Case Management System, Community and Advocate Portal System, and Court Recording and Transcription System. In addition, Malaysia has already been recently started to work with e-Judiciary and e-Court rooms (e-filing, automated e-communication of orders and verdicts, recording testimonies through videoconferencing, recording digital evidence and biometric attendance).In Bangladesh, if e-judiciary is introduced, then virtual court conducting and submission system by the learned advocates from the residence/ chamber/distant place in case of various urgent and pandemic situation will be possible . Now a day, due to Corona Pandemic when the world is static and locked down, our country including all courts has also been locked down. In such circumstances, e-judiciary and e-court rooms could keep tremendous contribution to keep the judiciary operative despite having such lock down. So, the pre-condition to declare our country digitalized is to introduce e-judiciary and e-court rooms in Bangladesh in no time.
To down my pen, I had better utter once again the urgency of introduction of e-judiciary and e-court rooms in Bangladesh to get rid of the multiple problems faced by the litigants and the whole judiciary with the millions of case backlogs. Hence, my whole hearted belief is that the concerned authority will obviously never try to show courage to face the contempt proceedings and hence, we are sanguine that the order of the Hon’ble High court will be complied by the respondents through which our judiciary will enter into a new horizon washing away all the loopholes.
The writer is an advocate of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh.
supremecourtlawyer.bd.uk@gmail.com
