IT vital for administration of Justice - Justice Suresh Chandra

Sarath Malalasekera

Information Technology (IT) has gained unprecedented importance both at national and international level and is one of the vital factors for sustainable growth, good governance and administration of Justice, said Supreme Court Judge, Justice Suresh Chandra at the retired Judges Association AGM held at the Continental Hotel Colombo recently.

Justice Suresh Chandra speaking on the theme “Use of technology in judicial system,” said that automation has been introduced by developed as well as developing countries in their judicial sector as an enabler towards an accelerating process and for delivery of a higher level of services to the litigants, Bar, Bench, Law enforcement agencies and other stakeholder.

It also enables easy access to information, increased transparency and accountability and lowering of costs.

Very valuable presentations were made by various spokespersons regarding the use of technology in their systems at the Asia Pacific Judicial Reform Forum in Beijing, China recently. Some of the Asian countries for example Malaysia and Singapore have highly advanced systems in their judicial system. Justice Suresh Chandra emphasised that the developed countries have introduced an “E Filing” system. The Registry receives the soft copies and uploads them on the server. No hard copy is required but if the lawyer brings a hard copy it is scanned at the speed of one document per second and loaded into the server.

The Judge views these documents from his computer screens and types out whatever order that he has to make regarding the steps. Earlier, cases were called by the Court Clerk, and the Lawyer had to queue up outside the Registrar’s Office. Now a lawyer needs only to punch in his case number and name on the screen located outside the Registrar’s Office. His opponent has to do the same and when both have recorded their attendance the Registrar would call them in.

Lawyers can also punch in their mobile numbers from where they receive a text message when their case is ready to be heard.

Justice Suresh Chandra said the World Bank which was represented at the Forum was very much interested in promoting the use of technology throughout the world and they expressed their willingness to assist countries which required such assistance. In Sri Lanka there are some systems in place and are really at their initial stages and there is scope for improving same.

The District Court of Colombo has a computer room and computerization takes place regarding filing of cases and their movements. In fact even proceedings are being made available in three courts where such recording is installed.

The Commercial High Court of Colombo has a recording system which needs further improvement.

The Court of Appeal had a data base of appeal cases and there too further improvement is necessary.