The Judiciary is on a drive to modernise its processes and ensure the speedy, effective and reliable resolution of disputes requiring litigation, with the phased rollout of the integrated electronic case management system.
The system connects the Parish Courts, Supreme Court, Gun Court, the High Court Division of the Gun Court, the Circuit Division of the Gun Court and the Court of Appeal to a database where case files can easily be accessed from any location.
Chief Justice, Hon. Bryan Sykes, told a recent JIS Think Tank that the system boosts efficiency by eliminating the time-consuming elements of a paper-based case management system.
“Paper is good and we’ll never say it’s bad, but digitisation gives you certain efficiencies that you can’t achieve with paper. You are able to search the database faster, you can look for keywords faster, you can apply artificial intelligence to summarise the document… you can prepare orders in a digital space faster, send it to the parties and so on,” he said.
He further highlighted the limitations of the current system, pointing out the many steps being taken by officers of the court.
“The present process, because it is paper, is that the lawyer has to come to court, file the document [and] it is heard by the judge or the judicial officer [and] an order is made. The lawyer [then] goes back to the Chambers, prepares the document, sends it back to the court, then it is checked for corrections and there is back and forth with the attorney, and then if it is correct it is signed. Then the attorney has to send someone to come and pick it up,” the Chief Justice said.
“With digitisation, you eliminate several steps; you come, make your application, the judge gives the order, it is dictated, and it is copied right there and then. It can be signed electronically; it can be given marks of authentication so that you don’t have the attorney going back and forth. That contributes to effective governance and, critically, making Jamaica an attractive place to do business,” he added.
Justice Sykes indicated the benefits of the system to Jamaica stepping into the global financial services sector.
“We really can’t have the current system that we have because you are now going to be dealing with high-net-worth individuals; you’re going to be dealing with persons who are in different time zones than the time zone Jamaica is in, and so they are going to be interested in speed, efficiency and reliability, and paper systems, as wonderful as they are, do not produce the desired result when compared with digital systems,” he said.