…firm contracted to build customized electronic case management software

AMID the disappearance of case files the Ministry of Legal Affairs has contracted a local information technology development and consultancy company to design, build and deploy a customized electronic case management software, which will streamline court cases within the Attorney General’s Chambers.

This was announced last evening in the National Assembly by Attorney General, Basil Williams when he made his contributions to the budget debates. Williams had previously complained about the disorganised manner in which things were done at the chambers by his predecessor, Anil Nandlall.

Williams told the House that last year 191 pending court matters engaged the attention of the law officers of the State for the period prior to December, 2016. For the period of 1st January – 5th December, 2017, 352 new matters were filed for the period under review making a grand total of 543 matters, engaging the attention of the Attorney General’s Chambers. Of this number, thirty-eight per cent of the litigations was filed by the Attorney General’s Chambers, whilst the remaining sixty-two per cent (62%) was filed by the other litigating parties. Of this number, a total of 110 cases were concluded as follows: Forty-five were dismissed or discontinued; thirty-seven judgments granted in favour of the State with and without cost and twenty-eight judgments granted in favour of other litigating parties.

Additionally, Williams told the House that a total of eighty-four new appeal cases were filed for the period 1st January – 30th October, 2017, thirty-three were filed by the Attorney General’s Chambers and fifty-one were filed against the Attorney General. At the Caribbean Court of Justice, he said five matters are ongoing for the period 1st January to 30th October, 2017.

Not a true reflection
“It should be noted that this is not a true reflection of all the matters currently engaging the courts. Prior to the accession to office of the Attorney General, there was no database which listed current litigation and its status. An attempt to do this was initiated in 2013 and the data has since been gathered and is presently being compiled,” Williams disclosed. He said these matters relate to actions filed against the State going as far back as the year 1998. He said the former Solicitor General, Sita Ramlall had introduced a central filing room to better manage and protect the State’s files. “Notwithstanding the AGMLA discovered that many files were missing and could not be accounted for,” Williams said.

He said with the new case management software court cases will be streamlined as it will feature: provision to capture all events, documents, correspondences and pertinent information for each case; develop a calendar of all scheduled events for all cases showing the assigned team as well; provision to easily search and retrieve all case information and documents; develop templates to prepare standard documents during the case lifecycle; provision to maintain contact information for involved parties and security to ensure case information can only be viewed by authorised individuals.

Minister Williams said the software will be installed on a server provided and managed by the E-Government Unit of the Ministry of Pubic Telecommunication. “It will be accessible from all computers within the MOLA via the E-Government Unit providing high speed network connection between the two offices. This approach avoids wasteful duplication of resources by making use of the State entity with the resources and expertise to manage the computing infrastructure.”