Federal Minister for Information Technology Awais Ahmed Khan Leghari Friday inaugurated a massive e-justice programme aimed at enabling the country's bar associations to have an easy online access to statutes, cases and laws.
He launched the first part of the project by inaugurating the automation of Multan District Bar Association, which also marks a simultaneous provision of online legal information to 30 other bar associations of Punjab province for a period of two years starting from Friday.
The ministry of information technology has launched the project at a cost of Rs 40 million to automate all bars associations, including offices of the high judiciary of the country. In the first phase of the project, 31 bar associations mostly district bars from Punjab have been provided online access to statutory and case laws while the remaining bar associations in the province would be automated within next few weeks.
Addressing the opening of online facility to the Multan Bar Association, Awais Ahmed khan Leghari said the project titled 'access to statutory and case laws' was an extension of an earlier programme whereby the Ministry of Information Technology provided 82 percent bar associations of the country online access to statutory and case laws for a period of three years which ended in April this year. Among the beneficiaries of the previous programme were 31 bar associations of Punjab, 16 from Sindh 21 from NWFP and three in Balochistan besides nine tax bar associations and three registry offices of Lahore High Court.
The minister said the ministry of information technology had come up with the latest programme in response to a very positive feedback received from the bar and the bench regarding the great extent of benefits and advantage it entailed for the judges and lawyers in processing and disposing of cases in quick time. He observed that the earlier programme not only facilitated the judges and lawyers in remote areas to have ready access to all sorts of legal information. It also led to a great amount of job creation and efficiency in delivery of justice and related public services. He hoped the extension of the programme at a much wider scale now would improve considerably the quality of services at various levels besides helping young lawyers in capacity building and to enjoy access to vital information with out buying expensive legal books and references or establishing their own libraries." It will also help substantially reduce time for preparation of a case which has been a major stumbling block in the quick processing of court cases," he said.
The minister disclosed that in the coming months, the scope of the e-justice programme would be enhanced to cover all tehsil bar associations of the country .The high Court Bar Associations would also be provided the same facility. He said the e-justice programme was part of a massive E-government programme launched by the Federal Government to increase efficiency and effectiveness of the government, increase transparency and accountability in decision making and enhancing delivery of public services to the citizens efficiently and effectively.