Online Reporter
Dr Walter Chikwana
The Judiciary in Zimbabwe embarked on a metamorphic process to digitise the courts with the introduction of a digital platform that allowed for the filing of all manner of court processes or pleadings, as well as the hearing of matters electronically.
The system leverages technology to enhance judicial administration generally and the management of the courts in particular.
When fully operational, it entails the total discontinuation of paper-based pleadings and obviates the need for litigants and legal practitioners to physically appear in court to argue their cases.
That digitisation is enabled by a computerised court and case management software called the Integrated Electronic Case Management System (IECMS).
The IECMS integrates all courts under one system by automating the entire lifecycle of a case from the initial filing to its disposition, execution of judgement and the subsequent appeal processes.
At its full implementation, it is also intended to fully integrate the courts with other justice sector stakeholders, such as the National Prosecuting Authority of Zimbabwe (NPAZ), the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP), the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC), the Law Society of Zimbabwe (LSZ) and the Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Service (ZPCS).
After full integration, all those stakeholders will be able to directly interact with courts online via the IECMS.
The integration process must, therefore, be understood in two senses.
First, it is between and amongst the entirety of the courts and the users and litigants who come before them.
Second, it is an integration between the courts and amongst stakeholders in the justice sector.
The IECMS represents a complete shift in the direction in which the courts in Zimbabwe were hitherto run.
It typifies the abandonment of the traditional paper-based processes and the advent of a streamlined, digital framework.
At its core, the IECMS is a comprehensive web-based application, inherently reliant on robust and ubiquitous internet connectivity.
That fundamental dependency on connectivity cuts across the entire judicial ecosystem, from the centralised data centre where the system’s vital components are hosted to every court station where judicial staff, legal professionals and the public interact with it daily.
This paper explores Zimbabwe’s experience in implementing the IECMS.
It draws insights from the challenges and successes encountered during the process.
The digitisation initiative was driven by inefficiencies in the manual, paper-based case management systems, which had resulted in document losses, delays in finalisation of cases, limited access to justice and complaints of corruption generally associated with human-driven processes.
Transparency and efficiency
The paper equally highlights the role of judicial digitisation in promoting judicial accountability, transparency, independence, efficiency and access to justice, all of which are at the core of principles guiding the Judiciary and the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) in Zimbabwe.
The digitisation mechanisms such as online case tracking and performance monitoring have enhanced transparency by ensuring that judicial officers remain answerable to constitutional and legal standards while maintaining their judicial autonomy.
Digitisation eradicated bureaucratic inefficiencies by enabling precise monitoring of judicial officers’ workloads and performances.
For instance, the progression of cases can now be tracked online by judicial officers, court staff and litigants.
Heads of courts and court managers can also monitor case backlogs and performances of judicial officers and other members of the judicial service without the need to physically visit the court stations.
Instead, they rely on the court monitoring tools that are in-built in the IECMS.
The transparency which results from the system fosters public trust in the Judiciary, because of the enhanced access to case statuses and progress.
In addition, the introduction of virtual hearings, e-filing, online payments, e-signatures and e-stamping has further improved processes turnaround times and made the Zimbabwean judicial system more user-friendly and accessible.
The paper also traverses the connection between judicial digitisation and judicial independence.
Digitisation contributes to judicial independence by reducing reliance on manual processes and paperwork.
In the process, the external pressures that are traditionally attendant and may serve to influence court operations are limited.
Equally, judicial officers benefit from better workload management, which allows them more time to focus on delivering informed and better-reasoned decisions.
The paper underscores the importance of aligning technological advancements with public needs to ensure streamlined processes and improved access to justice.
Public awareness campaigns, training programmes and technical support mechanisms, such as e-filing centres, IECMS help desks and 24/7 call centres, were critical in driving the adoption of the IECMS and ensuring a smooth transition.
The phased implementation approach, where implementation started from the apex courts such as the Constitutional Court and Supreme Court before gradually moving down to the Magistrates’ Courts, allowed for iterative improvements, which, in turn, fed into user confidence-building.
The contributions previously made by other writers in critiquing the Zimbabwe IECMS implementation matrix have been acknowledged. Those contributions stirred an interesting discourse on the trajectory adopted by Zimbabwe’s Judiciary thus far.
It is hoped that this paper will play its small part in the development and improvement of the body of knowledge around the digitisation of the courts in Zimbabwe.
From paper-based court procedures to digitisation
Prior to the introduction of IECMS in the courts, the judicial system in Zimbabwe operated under a manual, paper-based case management framework, which limited accountability, efficiency and accessibility.
Court users and litigants were required to file all documents physically and to attend hearings in person.
The service of court processes and pleadings was not spared. It could only be done physically.
The payment of court and other user fees was limited to cash transactions at court registries.
That manual system resulted in numerous inefficiencies, bottlenecks and at times in outright deliberate manipulation of court processes.
Critical court documents and oftentimes entire case files were lost or stolen.
Stories of pleadings and other court documents having been fraudulently back-date-stamped were not uncommon, giving an unfair, if not illegal, advantage to litigants guilty of tardiness in defending claims against them.
The tracking of cases was disjointed, access to information was difficult and accountability mechanisms were weak.
There was no centralised system to monitor the progress of cases, which led to huge backlogs, inconsistencies in court processes and general poor monitoring of court performances and reporting.
Whilst Zimbabwe’s Judiciary was stagnant and became saddled with all these man-made challenges, other countries were taking steps to mitigate them or had already ridden the crest of that wave.
The last straw that spelt the doom of the manual systems came unexpectedly with the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic at the end of 2019.
The situation rapidly deteriorated and by the beginning of 2020, practically all courthouses in the country were closed for long spells.
The Government, in compliance with the World Health Organisation recommendations, imposed strict curfews, often supervised by the security forces.
There were severe restrictions on human movement. As a result, court attendances by both court staff and members of the public became impossible. Routine court operations were suspended for extended periods.
Legal practitioners were unable to operate, persons remanded in custody for criminal violations could not be brought to court and the general public was effectively denied access to the courts.
The consequences of the Covid-19 restrictions included an increase in court backlogs and significant difficulties in accessing the courts.
Needless to say the suspension of court proceedings did not halt the emergence of legal disputes, thus resulting in an untenable situation where the Judiciary could not perform its constitutional mandate of dispensing justice. It impacted on the rule of law.
While the Covid-19 pandemic exposed the fragilities of the justice delivery system, in Zimbabwe, it also became an opportunity for the JSC to innovate new justice delivery methods, such as virtual court platforms, which are part of the core features of the IECMS.
The glaring limitations prompted the Judiciary to accelerate its longstanding ambition to digitise court operations.
It increasingly became inevitable that the only way the integrity of the courts and the administration of justice could be preserved was to digitise the courts and enable court processes to be undertaken from anywhere.
The Chief Justice of Zimbabwe, Justice Luke Malaba, graphically captured the scenario when he commented as follows: “The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, though traumatic and harrowing in many respects, has revealed a certain truth about the use of technology. Various professionals have now embraced digitisation in their day-to-day activities . . . The Judiciary appears to have been slow in adopting electronic justice, as it has found comfort in traditional ways of doing things, such as reliance on hard copies of books, allowing physical appearance in courts and filing of physical documents. The Judiciary is doing this at its own peril, as the use of information communication technology has increasingly become the normal way of doing any business, including the business of delivering justice . . . The problems presented to the Judiciary by the nature and gravity of the impact on the justice delivery system by the consequences of the lockdown and restrictive measures put in place by Government to prevent and contain the spread of Covid-19 are enough justification for the reform of the justice system.”
Notably, the decision to digitise the court system in Zimbabwe was also grounded in the Constitution of Zimbabwe. Section 190(2) of the Constitution mandates the JSC to promote the efficient, effective and transparent administration of justice.
Against the backdrop of inefficiencies caused by the paper-based case management system, the JSC was legally obligated to correct the issues that militated against the efficient administration of justice in the country by adopting strategies aimed at enhancing the efficiency of the courts.
It was on that basis that the IECMS was formulated and designed by the Judiciary as a tool to further its mandate in terms of Section 190(2).
In addition, Section 165 outlines the foundational principles that are supposed to guide Zimbabwe’s Judiciary.
They include judicial impartiality, the imperative to perform judicial duties efficiently and with reasonable promptness and the requirement for members of the Judiciary, individually and collectively, to respect and honour their judicial office as a public trust and to strive to enhance their independence to maintain public confidence in the judicial system.
In keeping with Section 165, digitisation of the courts aligns with those principles.
A system that requires litigants to physically file processes at court stations often situated long distances from where they live can never, by any yardstick, allow the dispensation of justice efficiently and with reasonable promptness.
Instead, the introduction of virtual hearings as a component of digitisation made it possible for judicial officers, legal practitioners and litigants to participate in proceedings remotely.
That facilitates the performance of judicial duties efficiently and with reasonable promptness, among other outcomes.
The Declaration of Rights in the Constitution also presents a separate constitutional basis for the digitisation of the courts.
Section 69(3) of the Constitution guarantees every person the right to access the courts, or some other tribunal or forum established by law for the resolution of any dispute.
Access to the courts, which is usually mistaken for procedural rights of access, far transcends that narrow conception.
Rather, it is intrinsically linked to the principle of fairness in the treatment of all persons, guaranteeing the protection of their human dignity through the dispensation of justice by the courts.
Dr Walter Chikwana is the secretary of the Judicial Service Commission. The above is an excerpt of the paper he wrote that was published in the Journal of Digital Technology and Law 2026, which is a peer-reviewed, open-access, scientific and practical publication devoted to the study of the synergy between digital technologies and law, as well as possible risks and threats posed by the combination of technological progress, digitisation and development of law. You can read the full paper on: https://www.lawjournal.digital/jour/issue/view/15/showToc
