The Industrial Tribunal was yesterday hailed as a Caribbean leader for this week’s launch of electronic case filing and management services.

The National Tripartite Council, in a statement, said one of its executive members, Rionda Godet, became the first attorney to digitally submit a case to the Industrial Tribunal on Monday.

The council, which was created as the forum for resolving all workplace relations and labour matters in The Bahamas, said the new system will allow employers, workers and their respective attorneys to better manage industrial disputes as they progress through the Tribunal’s system.

Documents can be filed and accessed from anywhere in The Bahamas, which the council said will provide a more efficient and productive mechanism for dealing with industrial disputes by reducing delays, time and costs associated with the process. It will also save Family Island litigants having to travel so frequently to Nassau.

The council added that The Bahamas is the first English-speaking country in the Caribbean to digitise its Industrial Tribunal, an initiative that aligns with plans recently announced by the newly-appointed Chief Justice, Brian Moree QC, to introduce e-filing and e-case management throughout the Supreme Court system.

The Industrial Tribunal’s e-filing system was implemented by APEX, a Caribbean-based non-profit technology company established in 2017 by the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) to support modernisation of the region’s judicial systems.

Indira Francis, the Industrial Tribunal’s president, said: “We were able to implement the solution in under a month. This was due to the fact that the Tribunal was in a state of readiness for computerisation, and had recently completed its case backlog exercise. However, we were also well assisted by our dedicated staff and by the team from APEX.”

Bevil Wooding, APEX’s executive director, added: “With the new e-filing system, the Industrial Tribunal can provide faster, more efficient and cost-effective service. Lawyers can use the new e-filing platform to submit case documents and keep track of already filed documents.

“Judges and registry staff also have secure access to filed documents at the Tribunal, as well as on their mobile phones and tablets.”

The chief justice, in a recent meeting with the National Tripartite Council, also voiced his support for a system of binding arbitration as a way to reduce the volume of employer-employee disputes making their way to the Industrial Tribunal.

In a recent interview with Tribune Business, he unveiled ambitious plans for the total digital transformation of the Bahamian court system through a multi-year “e-services” roll-out designed to “catch up with where the rest of the world is”

The first reforms will focus on eliminating the bureaucratic, paper-based filing of court documents and replacing this with a technology platform that will allow them to be submitted electronically.

Chief Justice Moree, arguing that it was “simply impossible” to run the judicial system without such a platform, said the initiative will “reconstitute” all court registries in The Bahamas and lead into the development of electronic case management, fee payment, scheduling and other digital services.

Pledging that all changes will be “sustainable” and implemented over a two to three-year period, he said the objective was to provide swifter, more efficient and less costly access to justice for all.

Chief Justice Moree added that this would boost The Bahamas’ ability to attract the high-end, legitimate international business that the economy needs by demonstrating its ability to swiftly resolve complex commercial disputes, while also reducing legal costs faced by local investors.

And, by contributing to the speedier resolution of criminal cases, he said the judicial reforms will aid “peace, order, governance and stability” in Bahamian society by taking wrong-doers off the streets more quickly.

“We are contemplating a major, substantial programme of reform throughout the judiciary,” Chief Justice Moree told Tribune Business. “We have a system that is in great need of reform and modernising, and we think that if we succeed it will bring great benefits to Bahamian society and The Bahamas as a jurisdiction.”

“First and foremost we have to establish a modern technology platform which will be implemented throughout the entire judiciary. It is simply impossible to continue to manage the courts in the absence of a sophisticated, modern technology platform which will allow us to launch e-services in the discharge of the duties and functions of the court.”

Explaining how such a “platform” will act as the foundation to revolutionise all Magistrate and Supreme Court processes, Chief Justice Moree added: “For example, we have to introduce e-filing of court documents.

“At the moment, the entire system for filing court documents in the Magistrate’s Court and Supreme Court is manual, and it’s a laborious and outdated system. We hope to introduce an e-filing system where all court documents can be filed electronically via a laptop, and make electronic payments of case filing fees.

“We also hope to introduce an electronic case management system,” he continued. “That will be enormously helpful in managing cases through our system, tracking the progress of a case throughout its life. It will provide a powerful management tool to more effectively manage the resources of the court.”

The e-services roll-out will also extend to electronic scheduling of court dates, with attorneys able to apply for hearing dates electronically and receive confirmations via the same route.