Story by Panashe Nagoli
THE Judicial Service Commission (JSC) will roll out a mobile court system for the Magistrates’ Court by the end of the year as part of efforts to reduce case backlogs and improve access to justice.
The initiative forms part of ongoing reforms to decentralise judicial services and speed up the resolution of cases, particularly in courts experiencing high caseloads.
The mobile courts will be deployed to densely populated urban areas where demand for judicial services is greatest.
Chief Magistrate Mrs Vongai Guwuriro announced the development on Monday after the swearing-in of 25 magistrates in Harare.
“We are going to be rolling out mobile courts. This is a mobile court which will be going to densely populated urban areas such as Southlea Park where we receive a high caseload, and so it will be fully equipped with everyone and everything that one would typically find in a courtroom,” she said.
Mrs Guwuriro also said the Integrated Electronic Case Management System (IECMS) will be extended to two more provinces by 1 October, bringing the number of provinces using the digital justice administration platform to eight.
“By the first of October we would have rolled out to two more, and there will be five left, in the sense that from a Judicial point of view, Harare is split into Harare North and Harare South. The JSC has already begun publicity campaigns,” she said.
The mobile court system, together with the IECMS introduced in the Magistrates’ Courts last July, forms part of the Government’s wider drive to digitise court processes, enable electronic filing, strengthen case tracking and bring judicial services closer to communities.
