Summary:

The project aims to enhance the efficiency of the justice system through further use of ICT solutions with specific focus on the court subsystem and provision of reliable statistics. Of critical importance, the project will support implementation of the “Strategy for Information-Communication Technologies for the Justice System for the period 2016-2020” and the “Judiciary ICT Development Programme 2021-2023”. This Strategy is designed to ensure continuity and extend the scope of application of the ICT, through establishment of a user-friendly integrated judicial information system. This will further boost administrative capacities of the justice system, increasing its efficiency in providing data and services to the institutions and citizens. Ultimately, it will ensure more efficient cooperation with other justice systems, EU institutions, institutions of EU Member States and international organizations. This integrated judicial information system should be designed to meet the needs and encompass the key business processes of the Ministry of Justice, Courts, State Prosecution Service and Institution for Enforcement of Criminal Sanctions.

Objectives:

The main objective is to apply cutting-edge ICT solutions to improve the overall efficiency of the justice system.

The project will address priority areas defined ICT Strategy and Action Plan for the Justice System, with focus on:

a)      strengthening the capacities of the Ministry of Justice;

b)      development of two subsystems of judicial information system: for Courts and the Institute for the enforcement of criminal sanctions;

c)      introduction of the business intelligence module for analytics and statistics; and

d)      provision of technical assistance for business continuity and integrity of data.

Functionalities of the subsystems will ensure automation of operation within the organizational units of the justice system, in such a way that all processes are conducted through the use ICT, including: entry of data, entry of the entire documents/files, recording all the changes in daily procedures, simple electronic search of cases, efficient generating of the reports with various parameters. It will also offer possibilities of generating various analytical and statistical reports to substantiate evidence-based policy making. Ultimately, all this will help the country advance in the EU Integration process.

Activities:

Project activities are implemented by UNDP Montenegro, in a close cooperation with the Ministry of Justice, and they are organized around six components:

1.      Strengthening the ICT Division in the Ministry of Justice and ICT management of other judicial institutions to ensure efficient allocation of human and financial resources to deal with the Judicial information system.

2.      Developing and implementing courts sub-system in such a way that it can meet the needs of Montenegrin judiciary, make business processes more efficient and rationalize use of resources at courts’ disposal.

3.       Establishment of the electronic exchange of data between courts and other judicial institutions.

4.      Strengthening analysis and statistics capacities of the judiciary – to generate reliable reports on the operation of institutions, statistical reports important for monitoring and evaluation of processes.

5.      Enable Institute for Enforcement of Criminal Sanctions administration to work more efficiently, monitor the daily work, generate the reports and integrate its work with other institutions through development of sub-system.

6.      Judicial Information System security and protection of data ensured through appropriate policy and regulation.

Expected results:

Efficiency of Judiciary will be increased by applying ICT in the daily work of judicial institutions. This will increase their efficiency, communication, knowledge and coordination and ultimately lead to increased respect of basic human rights and professionalization of the judiciary in line with the EU integration plans and the obligations of Montenegro. Also, all new knowledge acquired through the project by the judicial employees will serve as the starting point for continuous improvement and efforts leading to increasing the overall efficiency and quality of work of the judiciary in general.

Partners: 

Ministry of Justice

Courts: Strategy - ICT in Judiciary