Era of missing dockets over - Ursula Owusu

Communications Minister Ursula Owusu Ekuful has said the launch of the paperless court system dubbed: e-Justice Project brings an end to the era missing dockets in Ghana’s justice delivery system.

Speaking at the inauguration ceremony of the e-Justice Project on Wednesday, the Communications Minister said the project marks an important event in the cycle of justice delivery in the country.

“Indeed, as a lawyer myself, I am confident that the era of missing dockets, misplaced legal documents, poor record keeping and resource management are now things of the past, as the Judicial Service of Ghana has been assisted with an e-Justice System in 43 High Courts to improve on the effectiveness and efficiency of justice delivery in Ghana,” Mrs Owusu Ekuful said.

Building new court edifices, she said is great but without the introduction of new technology which modernises justice delivery processes, introduces efficiency in document management and processing and reduces the delay and drudgery associated with the manual execution of tasks, not much will change and the service will continue grinding along its well-known slow pace of work albeit in nicer surroundings.

According to her, “Today, our justice system has also benefited from the increasing use of digitization in the delivery of services to citizens as is being promoted by the government of the NPP under H.E the President” and that from the filing of processes to final delivery of judgement, the impact of digitisation in faster services, prompt notification, and efficiency of delivery will be the user experience of all, from the parties in the case, registry staff, lawyers and judges.

Mrs Owusu Ekuful further added the government of Ghana is actively pursuing its vision of the digitization of all aspects of our public life and building a digital economy.

“The overarching aim of this policy is to improve the quality of life by significantly enriching our social, economic and cultural well-being using Information and Communication Technologies as the main engine for accelerated and sustainable economic and social development,” she said.

The Communications Ministry is implementing the e-Justice Project under the e-Transform Project with funding support from the World Bank and has cooperated with other MMDAs to develop various applications to enhance their own efficiency, output and service delivery.

Some of the beneficiary agencies are;

Ghana Immigration Service with an e-Immigration system for secure border management and control and other immigration services;

Public Procurement Authority with an eProcurement system for public procurement management;

Parliament of Ghana with an eParliament system Data Protection Commission with an Integrated system for management and processing of personal data

Automatic weather stations for the Ghana Meteorological Agency which were launched a few weeks ago

A digital authentication system, PKI, which will also go live in a few weeks E Registrar General linking up with the Ghana Revenue Authority and the Ghana Electronic Payment Platform

The Ministry of Justice and office of the Attorney General, eMOC and e-Cabinet all of which are at various stages of completion and

Judicial Service of Ghana with an eJustice system.