Maldives has the least number of pending court cases and the most efficient judicial system in South Asia, says Chief Justice Abdulla Saeed.
The Chief Justice made the statement while addressing the colloquium on “Doing Business in Maldives – A Judicial Perspective” held at Hotel Jen on Monday.
In his speech Saeed noted that the government’s decision to establish a ‘judicial academy’, to train judges, judicial sector employees and lawyers, was an important step in improving the judicial sector.
He said obstacles to business, finance, and trade have been overcome in the last three years, and steps have been taken to improve the efficiency of the judicial sector.
He also said that the Maldivian judicial sector closely watches its ‘quality of judicial processes index’, which evaluates whether an economy has adopted a series of good practices that promote quality and efficiency in the court system. He noted that the Maldives has been improving its ‘alternative dispute resolution’ process, which is a component of the index. He added that 48 percent of cases filed with the Civil Court, from January to September this year, were settled out of court.
He said a court automation system has been established, which will improve the processing time of court cases, and noted that the Maldives has the least number of pending cases among South Asian countries.
He also said a wide-area network will be established soon in the judiciary, which will connect more than 100 magistrate courts with the Department of Judicial Administration. The establishment of the network will allow video conferencing and automation of information transfers between magistrate courts, he added.