The Minister of Justice says that the Judicial Service Commission has set up a digital online information system to obtain information on cases pending in district courts island wide.
President’s Counsel, Minister of Justice Ali Sabri, said that as a response to an oral question presented in Parliament on Wednesday, December 2, the 9th day of the Committee Debate on the Budget for next year.
According to the Government Information Department, the Minister of Justice stated that 231,506 cases are pending in the District Courts island wide and out of these 4620 cases are more than 20 years old. The Minister said that the Judicial Commission was collecting information on such cases in the District Courts and that information on each case could not be provided without establishing a digital database.
More than seven lakh cases.
It was recently revealed that by the end of last year, the number of unfinished cases in all courts in Sri Lanka had exceeded seven lakh.
The government says there were 766,784 pending cases in all courts by the end of 2019.
In that context, Cabinet approval was granted in September 2020 to establish a special unit under the Ministry of Justice to strengthen the administration of justice.
The Department of Government Information had announced that the approval had been obtained at the Cabinet meeting held on Monday, September 28.
On the day of the Cabinet decision, it was stated that in 2016, the National Law Conference Committee had submitted a report on the various problems that cause delays in cases, the adverse effects caused by them and the proposed solutions.
The Ministry of Information states that the Government has stated that necessary steps should be taken through infrastructure development, legal reform, judicial automation and capacity building to address the issues that cause delays in cases.
Accordingly, considering the proposal made by the Minister of Justice, the Cabinet approved in September the establishment of a special unit under the Ministry of Justice to implement the Judicial Reform Program within a period of 3 years with the assistance of experts in the field of law had been announced.