Judiciary to focus on digitalisation of guilty pleas in targeted traffic cases

KUALA LUMPUR: The Judiciary’s prepare for 2021 is to digitalise the taking of responsible pleas in targeted visitors scenarios and to enable the payment of fines electronically, stated Chief Justice Tun Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat (pix).

In a 2021 New Year information issued yesterday, she claimed at present, a system exists in section 137 of the Legal Technique Code which permits an accused particular person to plead responsible to a summons by way of a letter.

“Through that mode, the magistrate is allowed to dispense with the own attendance of the accused, to convict him and to impose a sentence of fantastic only. Having said that, this provision is hardly utilised. Our studies disclosed no recent scenarios of responsible pleas by way of letter.

“To lessen pointless foot targeted visitors and to greatly enhance access to justice and the efficiency of the Justice of the peace Courts, we suggest, in addition to the guilty plea by letter system, to enable the having of pleas and to impose the sentence of fines only, via a recommended electronic technique,” she mentioned.

She added that this technique has been applied in various other jurisdictions these types of as Singapore, England and Wales and Australia.

Tengku Maimun claimed the digitalisation of the site visitors conditions complements e-Jamin, a procedure that permits for the on-line payment of bail, and which has been thoroughly operational.

“We have thoroughly expanded our e-Courts Finance, which is our on the web and cashless payment mechanism, in the course of Peninsular Malaysia. For Sabah and Sarawak, the system will be accomplished in the afterwards section of 2021,” she said.

The moment the electronic plea of guilt system is up and managing, the Judiciary’s next undertaking is to combine it with Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a guideline for sentencing.

“The Subordinate Courts in Sabah and Sarawak have spearheaded integrating the use of AI in sentencing for certain common offences. To make certain consistency in sentencing, we seek out to do the similar in Peninsular Malaysia for certain cases and we purpose to pair it with the on-line plea program.

“This job is in the pipeline for the afterwards component of 2021 topic to the regulation regulating digital procedure for responsible pleas, in put,” she reported.

The main justice explained she respect the fears that the Bar Council experienced on conducting trials on the web, these types of as the possibility of witness-coaching.

“Now we have the recently inserted Purchase 33A of the Guidelines of Courtroom 2012 which arrived into result on Dec 15, 2020. Purchase 33A incorporates specific technique on how on the internet trials are to be executed.

“But even prior to the coming into power of Get 33A, the Higher Court docket in Kuala Lumpur experienced effectively performed assessment of witnesses on the web. No process is at any time best but we have to move in tandem with time,” she said.

In yet another advancement, Tengku Maimun claimed the Superior Courts in Malaya and in Sabah and Sarawak have disposed a overall of 5,663 conditions out of 7,544 conditions preset to be read on the web among March and December this yr.

“This presents a fairly great disposal price of about 75 percent.

“At the Court of Appeal, 484 out of 1,122 appeals set to be listened to on the web had been disposed of although at the Federal Courtroom, 345 instances (civil and prison appeals such as motions for depart) ended up fixed to be read on the internet and of those, 164 conditions have been disposed of.

“As for the Subordinate Courts, the Magistrate and Classes Courts throughout Malaysia preset 12,733 cases to be listened to on the net, out of which 5,659 scenarios have been disposed of,” she said.

In the meantime, she reported it has constantly been the custom of the Judiciary to host the Opening of the Legal Calendar year each and every calendar year, having said that, the situations arising out of the Covid-19 pandemic do not allow them to do so in 2021.

“The main obstacle posed by the pandemic has been to ensure that the administration of justice does not grind to a halt as a outcome of the lockdown actions imposed to control it.

“Consequently, significant endeavours have been manufactured across the justice process to guarantee development in legal proceedings, inspite of the constraints,” she mentioned. — Bernama