Influence of the electronic case management system(ELCM) on the effectiveness of court service delivery: The case of the Eldoret court station, Kenya

Abstract

The advancements of the 21st century have led to an emergence of many disciplines with great potential to solve existing problems.. 15th of February 2011 marked the commissioning of the Eldoret Court station Case Management System in Kenya, making it the first court to fully benefit from this merger of ICT and delivery of justice. The Judiciary of Kenya has embarked on massive transformation initiative; it has recently launched its’ transformation framework 20122016 with the fourth pillar being harnessing technology as an enabler for justice with plans for a country-wide roll out of the case management system. Without an analysis of the influence of ICT at the Eldoret Court station its difficult for the judiciary to make informed decisions relating to the implementation of its automation projects. This study sought to report the influence of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) on effective court service delivery at the Eldoret Court Station in Kenya.. The influence of the cost of ICT, employee job satisfaction, court data security and fraud/corruption was checked against effective court service delivery. The study targeted the 70 system user employees at the Eldoret court station. Questionnaire was used to collect the data from the sample. A census was used for this study among the cadres who are directly affected by the adoption of the system. The data collected in the study was analyzed by the use of descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. The relationship between variables was tested using correlation and regression analysis. The study findings show that the respondents consider the adoption of the case management system as an important component in the delivery of service to their clients. A mean response of 4.013 was realized signifying cost of ICT has positively influenced the Eldoret court station service delivery. The 3.665 mean overall job satisfaction rate among the respondents denotes that the case management system has positively influenced the employees’ morale. The implementation of the case management system has impacted positively on the security of court data with a significant reduction in the number of lost files. The study also revealed that the use of ICT has greatly reduced the level of fraud/corrupt in the court station. Therefore, the adoption of the system has improved service delivery in the court station. And should be adopted for other court stations across Kenya.