The Kenyan court system is anchored in common law, which is characterized by paper-based procedures and physical court appearances. The disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have shaken the very foundation of the system, forcing the judiciary to come up with measures to mitigate the effects and assure litigants of their right to a fair trial and access to courts.
Some of the measures taken by the Kenyan judiciary include adopting a virtual court and a paperless court case management system. The system, adopted on July 1, 2020, is still in its infancy and has attracted both praise and criticism in equal measure from court users.
Key features
The electronic court case management system supports electronic filing of documents, electronic service, electronic search of cases, electronic payment and receipting and electronic request for extraction of orders. The system has two interfaces: the user interface which is accessible to litigants, and the court interface accessible to judicial officers.
The portal allows for registration of law firms, organizations, self-represented parties, and the state. Once registered, all entities are able to file and serve documents via the portal. The system allows for registration and filing of documents on both existing and new matters. Once these documents are fed to the system, the user is then prompted to input details of the case. A payment prompt appears once documents are uploaded which a party will be required to pay via a mobile money platform.
Upon effective filing of documents, parties have a choice to either serve their documents through the portal, or choose to effect service via email. Service via email is now allowed in Kenyan courts subject to the Civil Procedure (Amendment) Rules, 2020.
Merits of the system
From a litigator’s perspective, the system saves time and resources that would have otherwise been used in filing and serving physical documents. The system has automated the filing and serving process entirely except for the Supreme Court of Kenya, where parties are still required to file and serve physical copies. Travelling time and costs associated with service and filing of documents have also been eliminated.
From the court’s perspective, the system makes it easier for judges and judicial officers to access court files. Once parties have filed their documents, the system generates a complete copy of the court file. Any documents filed in future will be automatically linked to the file on the system. The system also provides prompts and updates for judicial officers as to when a matter is coming up for a mention or hearing. Judicial officers are therefore able to keep an online diary of their matters with relative ease.
GS1 Data Analytics and Data Quality in play
GS1 Data analytics and Data Quality platforms can be effective for law firms looking to use information to gain insights into how certain judges act in the courtroom or predict how they will respond to their client’s claims. Big data platform can be built for litigators to scan through all the cases presided over by a particular judge, mining and storing information from a wide range of legal sources, like court logs and judge summaries.
The platform can then analyze this data to rapidly build a model of how that judge responds to lawyers based on past rulings. It can determine what motions they are likely to approve or deny, how often they grant summary judgment motions and which precedents they are most likely to cite in rulings. These platforms can also help law firms get a better sense of how they should respond to a judge. For example, they can find experts that have testified in similar cases, or counsel that has the most experience with a specific judge.
By pulling together court information, law firms can use data analytics tools to build a better understanding of how long their client will be in court, based on timelines and statistics from previous, similar cases a judge has seen. This information can also be used to understand what court will be best for their client’s specific claim, based on how local courts and judges have handled similar claims in the past.
Global Service Relation Number (GSRN) is the GS1 Identification Key used to identify the relationship between the organization offering the service and either the service provider or the service recipient. It can therefore be used in courts to identify particular counsel.
Smart Museums
Digital technology is becoming increasingly pervasive in gallery spaces, not just for science museums/centers, but for museums and galleries of all types. Museums are thus experiencing a range of new, common challenges, requiring approaches that can scale, to ensure long term sustainability. Museum applications can draw on robust Web standards and platforms for presentation, accessibility, data, etc. However, museum installations frequently go beyond a traditional Web page oriented paradigm. The Canada Science and Technology Museum reopened in November of 2017, after a complete reconstruction and reconceptualization of the exhibition experience. This presented an opportunity to tackle a number of contemporary museum challenges with digital technologies head-on, drawing on lessons learned from many institutions.
The museum as a “Subnet of Things”
Smart homes, smart buildings, smart cities… The Internet of Things is not just a technological revolution, it represents a historic shift in how we manage and interact with an innumerable array of objects and environments in our everyday life. This revolution is also transforming enterprises, and creates opportunities for museums to manage the increasing complexity of their gallery spaces. To manage the hundreds or thousands of devices within a museum, organizations are developing solutions that can be considered Enterprise IoT applications-essentially “Intranets of Things”.
Did you know?
In Kenya, National Museums of Kenya (NMK) is a state corporation established by an Act of Parliament, the Museums and Heritage Act 2006. NMK is a multi-disciplinary institution whose role is to collect, preserve, study, document and present Kenya’s past and present cultural and natural heritage. This is for the purposes of enhancing knowledge, appreciation, respect and sustainable utilization of these resources for the benefit of Kenya and the world, for now and posterity. In addition, NMK manages many Regional Museums, Sites and Monuments of national and international importance alongside priceless collections of Kenya’s living cultural and natural heritage. As an institution that must respond to the growing needs of the society. Some of the museums in Kenya are: Bomas of Kenya, Fort Jesus Museum, Nairobi National Museum, Lamu Fort, Malindi Museum, Nairobi Snake Park, Karen Blixen, Kisumu Museum, Kitale Museum and Narok Museum among others.
For museums, GS1 standards Global Location Number (GLN) and Global Trade Item Number (GTIN) can be primarily used to enhance traceability and remove human error from the location updates in a collections management system and reduce the time spent making them. Objects that are shelved, re-shelved, relocated, loaned out, exhibited, or otherwise moved to require their exact location to be updated in the database as soon and as accurately as possible to reduce losses and errors, as a result less time will be spent updating and managing locations, thus freeing up valuable time for staff.