Technology rollout in justice sector: stakeholders must study how systems work – SC Justice
Speaking at the 2022 Bench, Bar, and Faculty conference, she explains that the harmonization of technology is important to assess the work of the various systems stakeholders operate with.
Justice of the Supreme Court, Justice Gertrude Torkornoo has stated that all stakeholders in the justice delivery system must actively examine how various operating systems work, especially the E-justice system.
“We ignore this approach at our own peril. Especially since we come to this virtual world and we cannot go back,” she said.
Her remarks come on the back of what she describes as a failure of certain software systems that were to facilitate the work of the justice delivery system. She largely blames the failure on a lack of coordination, among various stakeholders including tech companies outsourced to deliver certain operating systems.
“In 2016, steps were taken to bring certain technologies, to create a suit of digital services, that involves tracking events and data in our criminal justice system, (from arrests by the police, investigations through the various agencies, prosecutions through the courts system, and custodial services through the prison system) capturing data on court processes in a software called the monitoring and evaluation software and creating a mutual resource centre for the legal fraternity called the web library.
These technologies were created by companies that sat outside each of the user agencies of the criminal justice delivery institutions. Full knowledge of the scope of contracts and works done by the technology-creating companies was not given to the user agencies. And the deployment, training and use of the system was structured to be done in silence within the user institutions. The result of this model of procurement and implementation of the software was a monumental failure to achieve the use and value of the millions of currencies used in their creation. The institutions did not talk to each other to ensure coordinated updates and good user experiences, and they could not effectively work with the software company to ensure updates, changes, and corrections,” she recounted.
“To the best of my information and knowledge, one of these software has been scrapped and intense work now has to be done to salvage the other two systems.”
Speaking at the 2022 Bench, Bar, and Faculty conference, she notes that the harmonization of technology is important to assess the work of the various systems stakeholders operate with.
