RIYADH, 8 April 2008 — The Court of Grievances announced it would launch a web portal in an attempt to expedite communications between the court and the public.
Muhammad Al-Amin, secretary to the president of the Court of Grievances, signed in Riyadh two contracts for the implementation of the system and the establishment of a portal along with its operation and maintenance.
The contract is for three years and was signed with a leading national company according to a press statement of the court administration.
The name of the contract winners or the price of the contracts were not provided, which is common practice in Saudi Arabia.
Similar systems have been implemented in the United States, Malaysia and Singapore. The system would enable the appeals court judges to examine pending cases and interact with the parties involved in the case even if they are not physically present in the court, according to Majid Al-Adwan, director of the computer department at the court.
The move is part of the government’s plan to develop the legal system in the country to cope with the increasing number of cases. Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah recently announced a major project to reform the judiciary, and SR7 billion has been allocated to upgrade courts and train judge. Planned changes include establishing special criminal courts and family courts along with courts for issues related to traffic, the economy, business and sports.
The new system at the Court of Grievances would provide an integrated basket of services including the online submission of pleas and presentation of arguments, informing the parties of the date of hearings by email or text messages, Adwan said.
According to the contract all the paper documents at the Court of Grievances would be converted to computer documents and manual operations would be mechanized, he said.
