Towards building an electronic court at Nghe An Provincial People's Court

PV:Dear comrade, it is known that in 2022, the activities of the Provincial People's Court achieved results, creating new points in leadership, direction and implementation of administrative reform, step by step digital transformation and orientation to build an electronic court... Can you tell us more?

Comrade Tran Ngoc Son:The 13th National Party Congress continued to identify and include the task of national digital transformation and digital economic development as one of the key tasks and basic contents of the 10-year socio-economic development strategy (2021 - 2030).

Accordingly, building an e-Court is an inevitable trend in the current "digital age" to meet the requirements of international integration and catch up with the civilized judiciary of the world; This is also the implementation of the commitment of the Supreme People's Court of Vietnam at the Conference of Chief Justices of ASEAN countries (to complete the construction of an e-Court by 2025).

An online trial in early December 2022. Photo: Tran Vu

PV:Can you summarize the implementation results at the two-level People's Court of Nghe An province?

Comrade Tran Ngoc Son:For the People's Courts at two levels of Nghe An province, based on the general direction of the Supreme People's Court, as well as implementing Resolution No. 05-NQ/TU of the Provincial Party Committee on promoting administrative reform in Nghe An province for the period 2021 - 2030, Resolution No. 02-NQ/DUK dated April 12, 2021 of the Party Committee of the Provincial Agencies on strengthening the Party's leadership over administrative reform in provincial agencies; In the context of limited facilities, lack of human resources, lack of technological foundation, especially for the District People's Court, however, the People's Courts at two levels have strongly deployed to catch up with the general policies.

Currently, the application software deployed by the Supreme People's Court is effectively applied at the two-level People's Court, saving human resources and time for the team doing reporting, statistics, monitoring and case management. The two-level People's Court has publicly disclosed 34,125 judgments and decisions on the Electronic Information Portal; organized an online video conferencing system connecting the People's Court; and entered cases on the professional management software to help the leadership and direction of the resolution of cases by the leaders of the People's Courts at all levels.

In the service work, the Provincial People's Court has advocated promoting service to litigants through social networking platforms (if agreed by the litigants), which has helped save 60,000 VND per service within the city/case and 130,000 VND per service outside the city/case compared to service through the Bailiff (similar to the District People's Court units). In the first 6 months of the year, more than 3,000 summonses were served via Zalo and social networks, saving hundreds of millions of VND; issuing copies of judgments and decisions to litigants on the People's Court's online public service system; providing judgments and decisions to the People's Court's Virtual Assistant software.

Technical support staff ensure signal transmission for online court sessions at the provincial People's Court bridge point. Photo: Hoai Thu

Regarding online trials, currently, the Provincial People's Court and 19/21 District People's Courts have installed online systems (2 units are repairing their headquarters) and have organized online trials for 240 criminal and administrative trials (including administrative cases at the commune-level bridge point) and 4 online administrative case sessions, being a leading unit in the Court system in organizingonline trialUp to now, although the province has a relatively large number of district-level courts.

PV:Could you please tell us about the solutions for the People's Courts at two levels of Nghe An province to achieve the above results?

Comrade Tran Ngoc Son:To achieve that result, the Party Executive Committee and the Provincial People's Court Party Committee have thoroughly grasped and agreed on the perception that digital transformation is a key solution to overcome limitations and shortcomings in court work, change the mindset of staff on the application of information technology, and support judges to successfully complete their assigned tasks.

Regarding facilities, in the context of limited facilities, units have been directed to utilize available equipment and requested local authorities to provide additional support to fully invest in equipment to meet online trials.

Regarding personnel, currently the two-level People's Courts do not have specialized information technology staff, the staff performing this work are mostly secretaries. The Provincial People's Court has directed units to send staff to perform this task, organize training on the use of software as well as system operation.

In coordination work, the Provincial People's Court has proactively coordinated with the Provincial People's Procuracy and the Provincial Police to carry out online litigation activities. Currently, an online courtroom has been installed at the detention camp.

Nghe An Provincial People's Court organizes a competition to write judgments and court minutes. Photo: Provincial People's Court

PV:Based on the achieved results, can you tell us about the plan in the coming time to further improve the effectiveness of administrative reform and gradually digitalize the People's Courts at two levels in the province?

Comrade Tran Ngoc Son:From the determination, all digital transformation applications will bring benefits to court operations for the purpose of serving the people. The application of information technology in court work is thoroughly implemented with the viewpoint of taking people and businesses as the center and goal; taking the effectiveness, efficiency of operations and the benefits of people, businesses and society as the measure to evaluate the results. Therefore, based on the achieved results, in the coming time, the Provincial People's Court will promote the deployment of professional management software, the leaders of the Provincial People's Court can review the data on receiving and resolving cases, the progress of resolving cases by time each day, assigning judges to resolve cases online on the principle of "random, objective".

Continue to supplement and ensure that 100% of eligible cases will be tried online. At the same time, when the court's online system is stable, it will propose to connect with the online system of People's Committees at all levels to carry out litigation activities for civil and administrative cases...

PV:Thank you comrade!