When we speak about acceleration we usually talk about things happening on a faster scale than expected. In the world of digital transformation acceleration is the way for enterprises and governments to keep the pace with reality. Public services are often the last in the queue of technology adopters. However, the contingent evens that we are witnessing in 2020 are about to change that, given that governments more than ever are willing to transform daily processes by endorsing their processes acceleration rate that would deliver the innovation to the public fast.
This is one of the robust technology prospects that 2020 turns into reality for the public sector. But in order to realize this transformation, government structures need to recognize the need to change their strategy or build a brand new one. One of the public sectors that is visibly embracing the process of shifting towards digitalization is the justice system.
On one end there is the regular citizen who suffers significant delays in case resolution. On the other end there are the court and justice institutions experiencing a severe weight gain in their backlogs. And on a third end there are the suppliers of e-justice software facing the challenges of complex processes shifting and stringent requirements of the sector. What aligns the interests of these three parties is the Strategy.
Digital transformation in courts and justice
One of the greatest myths about digital transformation in public services is that it will replace humans with technology. The truth is that digitalization doesn’t mean losing human touch but level it up. It means incorporating automation in operations and thus improvements of public services could take place. We’re talking about successful digital transformation in justice when this goal is aligned with long term cost efficiency and public trust.
The good examples in eJustice digital transformation
Some countries have already embarked on their way to digital transformation in justice. The UK, Iceland, Estonia, Canada, Singapore, Australia, some American states are already reaping the benefits of offering good digital justice services. These benefits can be described as:
- Intuitive and user-friendly operations. It’s not just about moving processes on court management software platforms. It’s about making the right set of requirements in order to get tailored eJustice solution that will meet all needs of the public organizations and their end users – the citizens.
Related: The essential list of requirements for court management software
- Self-sufficient digital document management. Ditching the paper in public services has a growing appeal everywhere. Not only because of the ecological impact it has, but simply because of the convenience the digital document management has to offer. However, digital interaction with documents in court procedures must be delivered as flawless user experience. For this purpose justice organizations must be able to test their court processes in demo environment before signing up for a brand new court management software solution.
- Improved communication. Information exchange is crucial in the process of case proceedings. The main benefit for the justice sector is eliminating the repetitive daily operations and enabling people to focus on the acceleration of cases processing and moving forward in the pipeline. Requesting and receiving information in an automated manner promotes court procedures and supports judicial organizations in delivering justice on time.
- Data security standards. Concerns about keeping data safe are a big deal and they must be addressed on the early stage of digital transformation. Storing and securing data in the cloud is one of the safe ways for the public sector to ensure data protection. That’s why focusing on cloud solutions is a good go for justice and court management procedures.
Technologies serving eJustice and court management
Artificial Intelligence, Cloud, Big Data – these technological advantages are strong tools that can be of great asset for any courtroom work making it much smarter, faster and efficient. For instance, the cloud technologies allow completion of tasks any time, any place without paper. AI in court management realizes tasks completion by using the power of data for optimizing backed decisions in zero time.
How justice translates all these benefits and technologies into a good strategy?
Counting the benefits of cloud services in justice and court management is easy. Coming up with the right way to implement them is the hard part. Justice systems are complex ecosystems. When their operations are transformed, a lot of things must be considered. Reality is changing fast, respectively citizens’ needs – therefore court digital transformation must always address those needs. In other words it means the justice sector must strive for moving its operations on configurable platform with multiple factors on the table:
- Government and judiciary priorities
At its core a digital transformation strategy encapsulates the state government priorities, so the sector’s cloud strategy must reflect them. Part of them include equal access to services, timely services, sustainability, keeping personal data safe, etc.
Governments’ digital transformation results are reflecting those priorities with paperless operations (sustainability), AI for reducing the court wait times (timely services), secure data handling, etc. The justice sector is free to use technologies that can translate these priorities into reliable services. So starting up with a list of the government priorities is a good way to start formulating the digital transformation strategy.
- Citizens’ expectations
How the eJustice services compare to the rest of public’s daily life? If self-service is the preferred way for shopping in the supermarket, then perhaps it will be also a preferred type of service in the court building. The perception of how public services must look like changes with time and fashion. That’s why it’s important to have a technology-driven strategy and technology-driven partners on the way to realizing the promise of digital transformation in eJustice services. This is what shapes the confidence and trust in public services.
- Cost efficiency
The outdated justice and court management services can be costly, time-consuming and may have a negative impact on productivity and public’s expectations. For this reason justice systems must leverage on technology to constantly support cost efficiency. Always on the lookout for innovations is the right mindset for achieving cost-efficiency in digital justice. This expectation must be translated in the eJustice transformation strategy and the relationship between the Court and the eJustice cloud service suppliers.
- Compliance with legislation and policies
The justice systems have different obligations that are changing with time in order to ensure quick and easy access to justice. Configurability is the feature that can promise compliance with the (ever) changing rules made to ensure accessibility and timely serving of justice. The legislation perspective is an important one when configuring an ejustice platform. Compliance with legislation must be ensured in each stage of the eJustice platforms life cycle. Accordingly, it must be set up as an important part of the cloud strategy.
A good court digital transformation strategy can set up the basis of a digital transformation roadmap. What’s next? Cooking up technical and functional requirements that reflect the justice sector priorities can be very rewarding endeavour when we get to the implementation part. But only when these requirements are shaped by relevant user perspectives and their expectations.
Do not miss our next post about user perspectives that must be aligned before implementing eJustice cloud platform.
