ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE AND CASE MANAGEMENT IN IMO STATE: A CASE FOR INNOVATION

Abstract

The article is premised on the recognition that organizational development is crucial to the building of the capacity of an institution to achieve greater efficiency and effectiveness. Hence, the need for innovation to recalibrate existing strategies, structures and processes to achieve greater efficiency and effectiveness. Based on this, it is argued, that for the judiciary to successfully carry out its mandate of justice delivery, an efficient and effective system of justice administration is not only crucial but also imperative. Unfortunately, justice administration in Nigeria is seriously challenged and this has impacted negatively on its credibility and appalation as “the last hope of the common man”. Notorious among the challenges include institutional weaknesses and corruption driven by desktop based application and manual filing methods, manual communication of courts records and service of court processes, long hand verbatim recording of proceedings by the judges, high cost of litigation and so on. The article argued that the above factors among others cause long delays and militate against effective justice delivery, leading to frustration and loss of public loss of confidence in the judiciary. Against the above background, the article examined how the judiciary can improve on the quality, efficiency and effectiveness of justice administration in Imo State, in order to meet the expectation of the citizens especially, those who have justiciable issues before the court. The article utilised the doctrinal research methodology and found that there is need for a paradigm shift from manual to digitalized court processes which should involve a proactive and innovative institutional development and case management strategies. The article concluded that a paradigm shift from manual to digitalized court processes will enhance effective monitoring or case tracking systems thereby, providing real time information flow and feed-back mechanism that will enhance timely and expeditious justice delivery and citizens’ access to justice. It therefore recommended that the modernisation of the case management system in Imo State judiciary is timely and urgent, to make the judicial process more cost-effective, faster and qualitative. It is further recommended, that this modernization strategy should include the re-orientation and adequate training of the judiciary staff to make them ICT compliant, coupled with continuing professional development programs to improve their capacity and efficiency.