The Hon. Chief Justice, Hon. Justice Bart Katureebe giving a speech at the Launch of the ICT Strategy
The Judiciary on June 7, 2016 unveiled its five-year Information and Communication Technology (ICT) strategy through which it intends to improve access to Justice.
This revelation was made at the Bukoto based, Kabira Country Club on the second day of the three-day Stakeholders’ Consultative Workshop scheduled to run from the 7th to 8th June, 2016.
While flagging off the Workshop, at Kabira Country Club last week, the Chief Justice, Hon. Justice Bart Katureebe welcomed the innovation saying Judiciaries around the world are adopting ICT to deal with case backlog through re engineering and automation of court processes.
He said the public Ugandans would like to see an ICT enabled Judiciary that is free of delays in the administration of justice.
Once implemented, the Judiciary hopes to quicken the justice delivery process, with a mechanism that allows the public to follow up court cases, have easy electronic access to the case judgements and also have updates on concerns within the Judiciary.
The ICT strategy is purposed to create an electronic justice system that includes, electronic payment of court fees, electronic filing system, data storage and video conferencing. When implemented, the system will cuts costs that would otherwise be spent transportation of witnesses from distant places to court premises as well as time that would otherwise be spent on queuing in the bank to pay for court fees.
It is envisioned that the strategy will scale down corruption in the Judiciary as most activities in the institution will be monitored by electronic security systems (some of these systems like CCTV cameras are already being used at some court registries).
The draft strategy comes at a time when the Judiciary is faced with a number of challenges,such as case backlog, power instability, staff shortage within the ICT department long procurement cycle and funding.
"I am glad that we are discussing a strategy. We are dreaming big but I will caution that we act small if we are to realize effectiveness out of this strategy,” Justice David Batema advised as a way through which the financial constraint currently faced by the Judiciary could be negotiated.
Hon. Justice Henry Peter Adonyo advised that for the strategy to be effective, there was need to "prioritize ICT services.”
In his closing remarks, Principal Judge, Hon. Justice Dr. Yorokamu Bamwine said, funds permitting, transcription of court proceedings should be outsourced to ease life for Trial Judges and Magistrates as it would eliminate the perennial complaints of delayed provision of record of proceedings and Judgements, loss of files or even challenging the record of proceedings as we would have both audio and video recordings.
The anxiously awaited strategy is to be realized in a stretch of five years with particular targets set for every financial year.
Cost
The ICT Strategy requires about Shs 36.5bn to be rolled out.
Posted 7th, June 2016
