FCT Judiciary Launches Digital Court Proceedings

In a bid to ensure quick and efficient court proceedings, the judiciary of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) has launched a digital speech recording machine and video transcription.

The FCT Chief Judge, Justice Ishaq Bello, who spoke during the inauguration of the devices on Wednesday recognized the importance of technology to the judiciary.

In his words, "it is glaring that technology is now and the future. Anyone who disregards technology will be left behind to his own peril."

He added, ”It is on this note, that the court which is the epicenter of legal conversation is equally striving to meet the demands of time.

”This is by leveraging on available technology to make work easier and justice more accessible in a healthy and friendly atmosphere.

”It has been the tradition of judges to write in longhand. This makes proceedings slow and sloppy not to talk of the health challenges it poses over time”.

Bello also stated that like other institutions, courts are made up of people whose duties are to see to the expeditious and fair determination of disputes in a manner that inspires confidence.

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The chief judge added that it would not be out of place to ensure a responsible deployment of technology in facilitating the court’s core mandate.

As he said, ”It is against this backdrop that we have commenced the digitization of this court.

”It is packed with massive potentials to fundamentally change the way things are done in our courtrooms today.

”In simple terms, this is a technology that records the audio content of court proceedings and then converts into typed words,” he said.

Speaking further, he added that what it means is that a judge can watch, replay court proceedings at any time, fast-forward, and even areas the demeanor of witnesses from his comfort zone.

"It will not only save the time and energy consumed by judges while writing and taking notes in longhand during trials.

"It will also speed up proceedings by the freed time being put into more valuable uses.

"It will be impossible to miss words and important details as it is sometimes the case while taking notes by hand,” he said.

He further noted that this was the first step of digitisation of the high court, the next step would be the online filing of cases and visual hearing platforms.

Given insight into the application, the project consultant, Joycelyn Adah, said that the call for innovation to accelerate the delivery in the justice system cannot be over-emphasized.

"It will store the original record and transcribe the speech into equivalent text with up to 70 percent accuracy.

"It also has a video component that comes in handy in this era of migration to virtual Courtrooms.

Adah further noted that the software is open-source/subject to improvement by rigorous research if given the opportunity to develop.

She added that the use of the devices in a virtual court setting will enable the court and parties' tone in contact both visually and orally.