Courts adopt technology to fight backlog of cases

Court of Appeal Judges will no longer need to crisscross the country to handle appeals cases as this can be now done online.The tele-presence technology spearheaded by Cisco Systems, an international technology solutions firm, has interconnected the Nairobi and Mombasa courts of appeal.

This is part of the ongoing automation and online interconnection process within the Government.This essentially means that backlog of cases and the need for judges to roam the country to listen to lawyers will be a thing of the past.The Court of Appeal is situated in Nairobi, but it periodically holds its sessions in Mombasa, Kisumu, Nakuru, Nyeri and Eldoret. It’s estimated that the sessions, commonly known as circuits, cost millions of shillings annually but this is bound to change.

Dr Bitange Ndemo, whose Ministry of Information is spearheading the changes in conjunction with Cisco, revealed that there are plans to extend use of the technology to lower courts to avoid the inconvenience of moving prisoners to magistrates’ courts just for mention of their cases.

"Prisoners have to be driven from prisons to courts even if it is just for a mention of their cases...with the tele-presence technology, magistrates will communicate with the accused via networked screens where the two (magistrate and prisoner) can see each other without shifting location," explained Ndemo.

Efficiency in Government

"This will save the Government in terms of cost of transporting prisoners, congestion in courts, and eradicate backlog of cases," added Ndemo.