The Abia State Government on Tuesday said it has begun the digitalisation of its justice delivery system to enhance the efficiency, transparency, and accessibility of legal services in the state.
The state Commissioner for Justice, Ikechukwu Uwanna, disclosed this during a press briefing on the outcome of the State Executive Council meeting in Umuahia.
Mr Uwanna, who is also the state Attorney General, said the adoption of digital platforms in the administration of justice in the state would be done in phases.
“The first phase in the court digitalisation is scanning court documents from the Probate Registry to the High Court to the Magistrate’s Court and Customary Court. The arrangements have been made for the scanning of all those documents.
“The (scanned) documents would be properly indexed and stored to ensure that whatever the document is, within a split second, you can find it in the central storage system.
“It also extends to the Ministry of Justice. Actually, the project has started.
“The second phase of the project is putting together an e-filing system, what is better called a court information management system,” he said.
Lawyers will be able to file documents remotely
The justice commissioner said the digital system would enable a lawyer to prepare his processes remotely and file the documents on a central judiciary website.
According to him, this would make it easy for lawyers and litigants to have access to justice.
He said that payments for filing court documents, the affidavit process for the documents, and the commissioning of oaths would be made online.
Mr Uwanna said the digitalisation would include provisions that allowed the service of court processes to the litigants or their lawyers electronically or physically.
“The judiciary is being provided with the capacity to ensure that the hearing of cases is done either physically or virtually,” he said.
Transcription of court proceedings
Mr Uwanna said the facilities for transcription of court proceedings would be installed in the court halls to remove any inhibitions to timely justice delivery.
“Judges keep writing with long hand and it affects their health and it slows down the administration of justice.
“When we complete this process, they would not need to write in longhand because there would be facilities to ensure that there is a transcription of whatever is being said in court,” he said.
The commissioner said the system would include delivering judgements virtually or physically, while certified true copies of those judgments could be applied for online and received electronically.
He said that this ensured that the justice delivery system would be totally transformed into using technology.
Mr Uwanna said the government believed this would make for an effective and efficient justice delivery system in the state.
He also said the executive arm of government had worked closely with the judiciary to ensure that the digital system would be designed to be user-friendly.
He said that in October, the governor flagged off the construction of court halls in the state’s 17 local government areas as part of efforts towards the digitalisation process.
Building of new court halls
He further said the prototype of the court halls being built in the local government areas had been designed to be very modern with renewable energy and adequate provision for natural lighting.
He also said the court halls had reached different completion levels and expressed hope that the contractors handling the project would deliver on schedule.
The commissioner said that part of the agreement between the government and the Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria involved sensitising its members on the digitalisation of the judiciary to ensure that no one would be unaware of the change.
NAN