The law ministry has initiated the process of launching a Tk 16.60-billion project aiming to bring the entire judiciary under automation, officials said.
The ministry has almost completed necessary groundwork to kick off the three-year e-judiciary project, they added.
"We have prepared the project proposal which is expected to be sent to the Planning Commission shortly for placing it before the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC)," a senior law ministry official said.
The main objective of the proposed project styled e-judiciary is to ensure transparency in the country's judiciary.
The scheme aims to help convert the country's 1,400 courts in 64 districts into an electronic court (e-court) with installation of necessary IT (information technology) tools like computer, laptop and virtual private network (VPN).
Besides, micro-data centres will be set up in 63 districts other than Dhaka before linking those to the central data centre alongside digitisation of the decades-old record system.
People involved with the process and experts believe that it will help mitigate the sufferings of justice-seekers whose cases remain pending with the courts for years and the century-old judicial system is largely blamed for it.
According to the official data, more than 3.3 million cases were pending with the higher and lower courts across the country as of January 16, 2018.
While talking to the FE, Law Minister Anisul Huq said the ministry is developing the project proposal. After completing the proposal, he said, they will seek final approval for the project from the ECNEC.
Law and Justice Division under the Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs will implement the project. The tenure of the project is July, 2018 to June 2021.
Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC) will provide technical support to the project.
Talking to the FE, former law minister Barrister Shafiq Ahmed said the proposed e-judiciary project is a good initiative as it will help reduce the backlog of cases and just-seekers will get justice as early as possible.
He also expressed the hope that the government would give nod to the project soon to help the judges, lawyers and court officials in getting training.
Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) Executive Director Dr Iftekharuzzaman told the FE that it was a very positive step.
Stressing the need for launching the project as early as possible, he said proper implementation of the project would help reduce the logjam of cases and ease the case management system.
The objective of the project is also to introduce a digital system for efficient and transparent judicial system across the country.
Apart from this, it aims to enhance capacity building of the judges, officers concerned and lawyers with knowledge and skills of information and communication technology (ICT).
Under the project, enterprise architecture will be developed for the judicial system, data centre and network operation centre for law and justice division will be set up.
Supply of tabs/laptops to judges, digitisation of the recordkeeping and old record-rooms, preservation of records of previous cases and judgment in digital system, taking testimony through videoconferencing system and digital evidence recording, installation of the biometric attendance system will be ensured under the project.
In his budget speech on June 07, Finance Minister AMA Muhith said the government planned to bring all courts of the country under the ICT network to infuse more dynamism in case management through e-judiciary.
Efforts were going on to reduce the sufferings of justice-seekers through introducing ICT in handling the judicial proceedings and case management by the Supreme Court and lower courts of the country, he added.
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