An official ceremony was organised in the Municipal Court in Goražde on 15 January 2016 to mark the successful completion of the process of digitizing its archives, and hand over the digital archive management system to the Archive of the Bosnia-Podrinje Canton.

The system was developed under the project “Consolidation and further development of judicial information and communication system“, which is implemented by the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina (HJPC) and funded by the European Union through the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA 2012).

Development of systems for managing digital archives created the technical preconditions for the efficient and safe storage and use of archive material, which is also an important step towards reducing the use of paper documents in the work of judicial institutions. The system was developed as part of a new generation of systems for automatic case management (CMS / TCMS) via a module that allows electronic processing of cases when archiving. The module includes the preparation of an acceptable archival document and its signature by a qualified electronic signature, archiving, storage, and a handover to the relevant archive for further storage or destruction of items after the deadline expiration.

Development of this and other advanced information and communication systems allows the BiH judiciary to maintain a leading position in the regional and wider perspective, representing an outstanding example of good practice that other countries are seeking to incorporate into their systems.

In her opening remarks, member of the HJPC Alma Džaferović said: “In the time of constant technological progress, it is often forgotten how demanding it is to computerise the judiciary in BiH, an attempt initiated by the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council a little over a decade ago. Since its establishment, the Council has taken a strategic approach to this issue, and thanks to this approach the BiH judiciary today has an advanced IT system that has not only changed the form, but also the manner and methods of work of judges, prosecutors and other employees in the judiciary.”

Džaferović also stressed the importance of the EU’s support in computerising the judiciary, underlining that the partnership between the BiH High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council and the EU was vital in achieving the objectives of the HJPC in the field of computerization.

Sead Imamović, the President of the Municipal Court in Goražde, highlighted the advantages of this system: “The digitization of the archive is a completely new dimension to the computerization in the courts. Long-term storage of items requires additional space and technical protection of the facilities, while digital archiving requires no additional space and resources for securing the archived files. Access to digitized archived cases has become much easier and faster, and no longer requires spending time on physical archive search and referral of the case. In this way, handing over the cases to the archive will only be a matter of taking few DVDs instead of  organizing the transport of large volumes of documents.”

The handover of the archives’ digital management system was delivered by the Director of the HJPC Secretariat Admir Suljagić and Director of the Archive of Bosnia-Podrinje Canton Taiba Mehmedbegović.