Saudi Justice Ministry wins UN-sponsored technical excellence award

RIYADH: The “paperless courts” project has allowed the Ministry of Justice to win a UN-sponsored technical excellence award at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva recently, the ministry said.
The ministry reportedly won the award following a global contest — on the best information and communication technologies (ICT) initiatives — where more than 1.1 million votes were cast for the sixth edition of the WSIS prize contest.
Voters selected from a list of 345 ICT success stories were nominated through a comprehensive review by the WSIS Prizes Expert Group from 467 submitted projects.
In January, the Saudi Minister of Justice launched a series of “paperless courts” in a number of parts in the Kingdom aimed to cancel paper-based transactions in all enforcement courts Kingdom-wide.
He said the (paperless) project handles all transactions in an integrated electronic process to save a lot of time, effort and money.
The project provides mechanisms to enhance judge powers through the direct electronic link to a number of government agencies such as the Ministries of Commerce, Interior and Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA), a matter that raised the efficiency of courts and restoration of rights to beneficiaries.
Salih Al-Miqrin, assistant ministry undersecretary for Information Technology, said obtaining such a global award affirms the success of the ambitious plans of the Saudi government in developing services in various government agencies in line with the Vision 2030 and the digital transformation in the Kingdom.
He said the electronic applications and services implemented by the Ministry of Justice are aimed to facilitate procedures and services provided to visitors, and raise efficiency as one of the ministry’s objectives in the National Transformation Programs (NTP) 2020.
The UN secretary-general will hand over the WSIS award to the Ministry of Justice in a ceremony to be held in Geneva in the middle of the holy month of Ramadan.
The UN-sponsored WSIS prize is a contest organized by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in collaboration with the UN Conference for Trade and Development (UNCTAD), UNESCO and the UN for Development Program (UNDP).