Metro Manila courts to go high-tech – Sereno

THE Supreme Court is targeting to transform the entire courts in the National Capital Region (NCR) into an automated trial forum, Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno said in her opening statement during the 3rd Chief Justice Meets the Press.

A courtroom that has been transformed into an automated trial forum captures all activities in the court electronically.

“This is done by linking the computers of the judge, stenographers, interpreters allowing all individuals to view and edit real time the documents being prepared,” Sereno explained.

Currently, there are 100 courts in Quezon City, Angeles City in Pampanga, Lapu-Lapu, Tacloban and Davao City that have been provided with equipment and training to conduct automated hearing.

Automation of courts is included in the Enterprise Information System Plan (EISP) in the Judiciary’s five-year masterplan.

“It identifies over 20 software application systems to speed-up the adjudication of cases, increase personnel productivity, and improve court and case management,” Sereno said.

In 2014, the EISP was updated to address implementation gaps and include the infrastructure components needed to implement the plan on a nationwide scale. These infrastructure requirements include an enterprise-grade data center, nationwide connectivity and network security.

To date, the following steps have already been taken to implement the EISP, which include the awarding of contracts for the Supreme Court (Main) Data Center Upgrade, the Data Center Disaster Recovery Site in Angeles City and the Virtual Integrated Systems Infrastructure (the servers and other hardware to be put in the data centers).

The three procurement processes constitute about 30 percent of the 2015 EISP budget.

Sereno said bidding for Phase 1 of the Nationwide Connectivity Project is ongoing.

The phase 1 covers 10 cities targeted for eCourts implementation in 2014-2016, which include Quezon City, Angeles City, Lapu-Lapu, Tacloban City, Davao City, Cebu City, Manila, Pasig, and Mandaluyong and all the other courts in National Capital Region, Regions IV-A and Regions VII.

Sereno said the three regions have the highest caseloads in the country.

“Internet access will increase judges and court staff’s access to legal materials and increase efficiency in their research work and case disposal rates,” Sereno said.

Sereno said on the 3rd Quarter of 2015, the bidding will take place for the Regional Data Center for the Visayas courts, Document Records and Archive Management System and Hearing Management System.

The Chief Justice added that there will also be an enterprise data center, nationwide connectivity and network security.

“These data center will be backed up by a regional data center,” Sereno said explaining that when disaster strikes, the courts affected by the calamity will have backup records.

Sereno has geared for the digitization of courts following the destruction of Bulwagan ng Katarungan in Tacloban at the height of typhoon Yolanda.

The Bulwagan ng Katarungan in Tacloban has been destroyed and the major problem facing the courts is reconstruction of court records. Even the Department of Justice is having problem on how to reconstruct records of cases.

Currently, Sereno said the Tacloban courts have been the model for one of the high court’s E-Court projects. Tetch Torres-Tupas