Open Network courts can enable vast judicial process reforms

livemint.com:

Last week, I had the privilege of attending the launch of ON Courts (Open Networked Courts) in Kerala, possibly the most creative re-imagining of the justice delivery system attempted in the country to date. Rather than merely adding new digital layers on top of existing non-digital workflows, this bold redesign of the judicial system re-examines how processes at the heart of the system ought to operate.

The animating philosophy behind this re-design is the notion that litigants should not have to re-orient their lives around how the justice system operates: they should not have to wait long hours for their hearings only to be subject to last minute re-scheduling requests, or to have to go to designated physical locations to file their documents and pay their fees, or follow processes so arcane that no-one remembers why they exist in the first place. Instead of making people to come to the courts, we should take the courts to the people.

The only way to achieve an ambition so bold is to rebuild existing judicial processes so that the system proactively addresses the needs of litigants in ways that account for their individual preferences and unique circumstances. With this in mind, each of the judicial workflows in the ON Courts have been re-imagined from the perspective of the relevant stakeholders.

For litigants, it has been designed to allow access from anywhere, allowing them to respond to summons, submit documents, reschedule hearings, and even appear from anywhere. It provides a full and complete view of their case, sending them proactive alerts of any actions they may need to take (file documents or pay court fees), allowing them to collect verifiable copies of all relevant applications, orders and judgements.