President of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) Sir Charles Dennis Byron informed participants of the Hague Convention Conference that the CCJ is in the final stages of developing programmes that would reduce the use of paper in judicial processes throughout the region.
He was at the time making his contribution at the Hague Convention Conference on International Law, Legal Cooperation and Commerce, which concluded on Friday.
He explained that the CCJ has tried to implement a process allowing all matters to be filed electronically. Additionally, all reports and orders made by the Court are issued electronically and the serving of documents is permitted electronically.
“In our situation, part of the reason for it had to do with expedition and cost, so for example, if we were receiving pleadings say from Belize, several copies would have to be made and sent to us by courier then you have the process of the registration, and it being returned by courier and then you’ll have the cost involved in arranging service… we have seen bills where the service of a document has cost litigants US$30 to 40,000 and the whole service process has taken a number of weeks including the process of courts,” Sir Byron explained.
He added by implementing those measures, the CCJ has eliminated the cost of filing and service to zero and the time to five minutes.
Former Home Affairs Minister of Guyana, Justice Stanley Moore said that Justice Byron illustrated and demonstrated one of the essential pre-requisites of a modern progressive judicial system.
“That is to say we are in the new electronic information age and therefore we need to make use of all the latest electronic devices. We have to keep up with modernity…the new norms will be the use and the availability of all the latest technological devices available to court systems throughout the world,” Justice Moore reasoned.
The Hague Convention Conference on International Law was hosted here from July 13-15, 2016.
