Business

Saturday November 28, 2009

Speeding up the court system

By DALJIT DHESI


MOVING from “ a cavemen era to the most modern system”, an American investor said when he was recently briefed of the court recording transcription (CRT) system.

The CRT, which is part of the overall electronic court system, allows court proceedings to be recorded via video and audio, hence reducing the backlog of cases and saving courts valuable time in dispensing justice.

Using the CRT system, it allows the chief justice of the Federal Court and the chief judge of the High Court of Malaya to view proceedings live from Putrajaya.

A businessmen involved in a trading company and a CEO of a multinational company both agreed that it is high time Malaysia adopted the E-court system which has made its presence in Singapore and Hong Kong where cases are expedited judiciously.

“My hats off to the chief justice for implementing the e-court system. Many commercial cases have been put on hold due to the archaic system and this is not conducive to the business community.

“To attract foreign investment, the judiciary should be efficient in dispensing cases and not sit on their laurels. I am glad after all these years, the chief justice has taken a bold move irrespective of some disgruntled lawyers who prefer to sit on cases,” he told StarBizWeek, preferring to remain anonymous.

The new commercial courts (NCC), which was launched on September, is equipped with the state of the art computerised system that allows for electronic filing, tracking of cases, video recordings and monitoring of trials as well as SMS alerts for interlocutory hearings.

Chief Justice of the Federal Court Tun Zaki Azmi said with the CRT system hearing of cases can be speeded up to three to four times faster, meaning that a case which normally would take four days can be disposed of in one to two days.

Furthermore, he added the judge hearing the case can now concentrate on the witnesses instead of spending his time writing out notes and examinations of witnesses can also proceed smoothly.

It saves court’s as well as lawyer’s time and the latter can spend this saved time to handle other cases, he noted.

As for criminal cases, Zaki said the Criminal Procedure Code had been amended to enable notes of evidence to be recorded mechanically compared with recordings in “in legible long hand” previously.

The system will be introduced in 181 courtrooms in the peninsula, ranging from all High Courts, all courts in Kuala Lumpur and to the Session’s courts over time.

“In Sabah and Sarawak, the Government is introducing a different system. In fact, I am trying to persuade the Government to introduce this in all courts. There will be financial savings because instead of employing four judges to dispose of a set of cases you now need only one or two judges.

“Taking into consideration the costs to maintain each judge, Session’s Court Judge or Magistrate, the costs of the system will be recovered soon. Costs of judges include their salary, perks, pensions, medical, courtrooms, supporting staffs and electricity, among others,” Zaki noted.

The e-court system provided by Formis Resources Bhd comprises an integrated e-filing system, Case Management System (CMS), Queue Management System (QMS) and CRT.

Zaki said he understand the CRT will be implemented throughout the selected courts by the middle of next year.

The CMS speeds up and improve the management of court cases. The QMS enables lawyers and parties coming for case managements to type in their case numbers and their mobile phone number and when their case is ready to be called, a text message will be sent to their phone.

According to Zaki, the second part of e-court is to enable filing to be done from the lawyer’s office, hopefully to be implemented in the near future once broadband width is available.

In the meantime, he added, lawyers filing their case at the NCC can bring their CD-rom and transfer into the court system without having to bring hard copies.

Even if they bring hard copies, he said they will be scanned and kept electronically. Zaki hopes to extend this practice to the other courts gradually.

The cost for the 181 courts is estimated at RM69mil, and the CMS will be for the major, high density courts only, he said.

It will not be financially beneficial to have the CMS in the smaller courts like Kota Bharu and Kuala Terengganu, he explained.

He said the challenge is to utilise this system towards improvement of efficiency and speedier disposal of cases.

I understand that judges who have used this system do not want to revert to the system of long-hand writing of notes and The Bar will also get use to the system, he added.

Zaki pointed out that the cases filed at the NCC to date, have not yet matured for them to be tried. However, interlocutory proceedings under those files have been disposed within a few weeks of close of pleadings, he said.

On training for the system, he said it was being given to the court staff but do not think the lawyers require any training. The lawyers in Kuala Lumpur have not expressed any difficulty with the implementation of the IT system, he noted.

Notwithstanding the implementation of the system, he said Malaysian judiciary nevertheless was still looking at Singapore and Hong Kong, as furthermore Hong Kong has the best judicial management system.

“Any counsel who ‘double parks’ in Hong Kong Courts is liable to disciplinary action by its Bar Disciplinary Body, he noted.

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