Judiciary beset with 21 lakh pending cases: CJ
Chief Justice Md Muzammel Hossain yesterday described the massive backlog of over 21 lakh pending cases at different courts across the country as the single largest hurdle in achieving the goals of the judiciary.
Enhancing access to justice for the poor, women and children, and dispensation of quality justice without delay are the stated goals of Bangladesh judiciary, he said.
According to the chief justice, about 2,132,046 cases were found pending on January 1, 2012, in all courts and tribunals, including the Supreme Court of Bangladesh.
The chief justice was speaking on "Potential of ICT in Case Management and Court Administration" at the inauguration of a two-day judicial workshop, jointly organised by the Supreme Court and UNDP at the SC auditorium.
Justice Hossain said he hoped that the ICT would make the justice delivery system more affordable, accessible, cost effective, transparent and accountable.
Similar objectives have been achieved in other parts of the world by the use of ICT, but in Bangladesh the ICT benefits could not be fully explored and utilised in the judiciary due to limited budget allocation, lack of IT infrastructure and skilled manpower, he said.
He, however said, "It does not mean that we are not using ICT in our case management and court administration processes”.
“In fact we have built up a unique home grown limited ICT network of our own and utilising the same in the Supreme Court of Bangladesh and some courts in Dhaka.
"By and large, the existing network provides us automation of case list preparation, digital transcription of orders and judgment and, of late, their publication on the internet”, he said.
The chief justice said the in-house IT team of the Supreme Court had also created a website with links relating to information on the SC and subordinate judiciary.
The link on SC has the judgments and profile of the chief justice and other judges of SC, he said. “Two domain names i.e. supremecourt.gov.bd and bdcourts.gov.bd have also been registered”.
Unless the court functionaries like the judges and the court staff show a personal initiative and involvement with bringing about a change in their professional culture by the use of technology, the efforts can hardly succeed at the touchstone of speed and quality, he said.
Justice Nazmun Ara Sultana, a judge of the Appellate Division, and Stefan Priesner, country director of UNDP, Bangladesh, also spoke at the function, which was attended by most of the judges of Appellate and High Court divisions of the SC.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.
Comments