Tanzania to digitalize its court's service delivery

By Xinhua

Tanzania is mulling over fast-tracking the process of computerizing its judicial system in a bid to ease and improve court's service delivery, Tanzanian Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda said on Monday.

While addressing judges and magistrates from across Tanzania, Pinda said it was time for Tanzania to move away from paper work to digital technology, which will speed up delivery of justice. "We are living in a very up-to-dated world, which makes us have nowhere to hide rather than taking practical actions to cope with the technological changes. Judges and magistrates need to get away with paper work, and instead we should digitalize our court's services to speed up delivery of justice," the Prime Minister said in the northern safari capital of Arusha. "Adoption of technology will help improve court procedures and make courts deliver justice in time..this will also reduce backlog of cases in our courts," he said. He however noted using out-dated technology in executing cases is one of the reasons that fuel corruption in the judiciary.

Pinda further urged judges and magistrates to change their way of doing things by delivering competitive services to the Tanzanians, who are relying on the judiciary to access justice, which is their constitutional rights. He pointed out indiscipline by some judicial officers has tainted the image of the judiciary yet they are expected to be role models to the public. Pinda's remarks came at the time when the recent released East African Bribery Index 2012 pointed out that Tanzania ranked the second most corrupt country in east Africa, whereby police and the judiciary ranked as the most bribery prone institutions in the country whose economy rely on farming.

A recent survey by Transparency International which carried out in the five east African countries of Burundi, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, revealed that Uganda (40.7 percent) has the highest bribery levels in the region, followed by Tanzania (39.1 percent), Kenya (29.5 percent), Burundi (18.8 percent) and Rwanda (2.5 percent). Tanzania's Chief Justice, Mohamed Othman, also admitted the country's judiciary is currently overwhelmed with numerous challenges that need to be addressed."We want cases to be in cost at the maximum of two years rather than today's situation whereby one case stays in court for five years," he said.

Source: Daily Monitor (13/11/2012): http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/World/Tanzania-to-digitalize-its-court-s-service-delivery/-/688340/1618904/-/875iwa/-/index.html