Digitising justice

The Supreme Court has completed the remarkable process of digitising all pending cases, with over 44,995 pending case files being scanned, barcoded, digitally catalogued and integrated into the Court's Case Information Management System (CIMS). The files are now searchable via Optical Character Recognition technology, turning what used to be mountains of paper into instantly accessible digital form. This could potentially be a huge step in the direction of cutting down the massive case backlog in the apex court - during the digitisation process alone, 11,999 of the digitised cases were decided, proving that technology can accelerate justice without disrupting the court's daily work.

The Supreme Court has also categorised every pending case by jurisdiction and subject matter, which allows for better case management and priority-based resource allocation. Electronic filing, QR-authenticated certified copies, video-link hearings, and a public facilitation centre offering 35 digital services are now operational, making paper records genuinely obsolete. But digitisation alone is not enough. Cost considerations are bound to come up. Managing databases is costly, and allowing external access would further increase costs. In the US, for example, the Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) provides online access to federal appellate, district and bankruptcy court documents, but it operates on a fee model - $0.10 per page, capped at $3.00 per document, with all fees waived for users whose billing is less than $30 per quarter. The fees also do not apply when PACER is accessed at designated terminals, such as those at courts. Still, these are public records that should be free for all, and although the government justifies the fees as covering court technology costs, reports suggest that PACER now generates $147 million annually, most of which is profit.

The Supreme Court and the broader judiciary should thus ensure that digital systems are sustainable, secure and accessible, perhaps by using other revenue sources, such as fines or paid printing services, to help cover costs.