81304347 - Strenghtening evidence based Case Management in Bangladesh courts

Description of Tender

In 2013, the government of Bangladesh commissioned a pilot Justice Audit of five districts. Since it was launched, in 2014, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been agreed by governments around the world and the government of Bangladesh set out its policies on criminal justice in its 7th Five Year Plan (2016-2020). As part of this, the Government commissioned a national justice audit, bangladesh.justiceaudit.org - the first national Justice Audit of any country - through its ongoing cooperation with GIZ. The findings from this comprehensive and unique exercise provided rich data to inform the approach of the 8th Five-Year Plan, which aims to address the delivery of justice more broadly, fairly and efficiently. The overall policy direction, underlined by Justice Audit data, is clear - reduce the inflow of cases into the criminal justice system that are clogging the courts and congesting the prisons, and help ordinary people more readily access justice. These policy priorities, in turn, provide a set of benchmarks to achieving the disparate set of targets set out specifically in, though not confined to, Goal 16, SDGs (Peace, Justice and strong institutions).

The National Justice Audit 2018 showed how the criminal justice system was functioning based on a wealth of data collected from citizens, practitioners, court users, criminal justice institutions and other actors across the country and by each of the 64 districts. An overview section depicts how the justice system should function in law and how it appears to function in practice (drawing on the experience of court users, practitioners and perceptions of the public). It demonstrates case flow (largely unfiltered) through the system. The System Economies page presents potential economies that could be established to alleviate pressures on the system, driven by the data, showing how - under the law - cases and people can be safely filtered out at various stages throughout the system and so reduce the inflow into the courts and prisons, as well as making valuable resources available for other priorities.

The Justice Audit 2018 provides the evidence base needed to inform the development of policy, and implement it, through a coordinated, problem-driven iterative adaption (PDIA) approach across the different institutions that comprise the justice system. The Government of Bangladesh has published its 8th Five-Year Plan, and has drawn upon the data in the Justice Audit 2018 for this purpose. The Plan highlights a commitment to increasing access to justice through strengthening formal institutions and semi-formal and informal institutions to provide accessible affordable and acceptable justice. The Plan section places particular emphasis on: relieving pressure on the district courts by filtering new cases (increasing the capacity of local justice services to resolve minor disputes) and by clearing cases backlogged in the courts, especially in the Nari O Shishu (NOS) courts; on increasing access to justice by scaling up semi-formal institutions (i.e. village Courts) and by investing in the National Legal Aid Services Organisation (NLASO) and supporting a network of partnerships with NGOs/CBOs to increase coverage and outreach; and on completing a "policy-evidence feedback loop" from district to national level.

In 2021, the Ministry of Law commissioned a Court Audit, which is an independent examination of registers and case files accompanied by a physical verification of all files to ascertain the accuracy of case data provided to the Supreme Court and efficiency of the system of case management in place. The purpose is two-fold: (a) provide an opinion as to whether -based on the inspection- case management of files meets basic performance indicators of: efficiency, effectiveness, compliance with the existing laws and procedures, accuracy, completeness and timeliness; and (b) offer a set of "Case Management Orders" issued by the relevant institution to alleviate the current situation and ensure performance indicators are met. The Court Audit 2021 identified some specific course of action throughout the process of the court. Those systematic actions, namely case management orders (CMOs), will enable the relevant institutions to adopt a comprehensive approach to reduce the case backlog. The data strongly suggest that the actions under the CMOs - whether selective or collective - will catalyze practical reforms in the way in which the courts are administered and cases are managed as well as result in a significant reduction in the case backlog. The CMOs provide specific guidelines from relevant institutions to address particular pressure points in particular courts identified in the Court Audits.

The project aims to build on the priorities set in the 8 FYP 2020-2025 and the course of action identified by the Court Audit 2021. Output 3 of the project deals with the development and expansion of evidence-based case management in courts, in particular with regard to the use of data within the courts and within mutual legal assistance partnerships. The assumption of effect is that by collecting and evaluating the data (e.g. case receipt, pending cases, duration of proceedings, rate of cases rejected as inadmissible, etc.) at the state courts, the courts will be able to use this data to reduce the backlog of cases fair and timely disposal of long pending cases and also by redirecting cases to local, semi-formal or informal conflict resolution mechanisms based established partnerships between NLASO and NGO/CBO. The project will support the establishment and capacity development of the Case Management Fora (CMF) at district level to collect and analyse data, setting targets to monitor case inflow and outflow, and report to the Central Information Unit (CIU) in analyzing data and making decisions based on the data.