WB reports on progress in creation of "smart" courts in Azerbaijan

The Azerbaijani government has fully completed the development of the World Bank (WB) loan for the Justice Services and High-Tech Judicial Infrastructure project, for which the bank approved the allocation of $100 million in 2014, Report informs citing the WB report on the status and results of the project implementation.

Of the additional funding in the amount of $50 million approved by the WB Board of Directors on March 26, 2020, $29.21 million (58%) was disbursed. The implementation of work under additional funding is planned to be completed by the end of June 2024.

According to the WB, within the framework of the project, the construction of the Sumgayit court complex, the Surakhani district court of Baku and the Masalli district court was completed. All court buildings and court complexes built according to the project have been put into operation, the bank said.

The Main Data Center (located in Baku) and the Backup Data Center (in Yevlakh) were built and put into operation - the main elements of the "Electronic Court" system. The backup center was certified by the Uptime Institute on January 25, 2021, that is, the most trusted and accepted global standard in the information technology industry for the proper design, construction and operation of data centers. The main data center is awaiting its certification after it also successfully passed "stress tests" in May 2022.

Implementation of scaled-up provision of free legal aid as part of the Additional Financing started in April 2021. From April 13, 2021 until December 31, 2021, a total of 5,673 citizens benefitted from legal aid services, of which 2,944 (or 51.8 percent) were female. Legal issues brought forward centered around housing, labor, family, administrative cases, pension and social assistance, and inheritance.

"At present (data as of December 31, 2021), the Mediation Council of Azerbaijanis comprises 278 members, of which 230 actively mediate in family, labor, commercial and consumer disputes. There are 47 female mediators among them. Of the 230 active mediators in total, more than half (i.e., 142 (female: 37) work in Baku; six in Sumgayit, ten in Ganja, two in Sheki, and two in Mingachevir. There are five mediators in the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic; the remaining 63 mediators work in 35 other cities and districts across Azerbaijan. The Mediation Council has received 12,585 requests between July 1 and December 31, 2021, of which about 740 were commercial disputes, 297 labor disputes and 8,515 family disputes. While mediation is mandatory for economic, family and labor disputes according to the "Law on Mediation", citizens can also voluntarily opt for mediation and did so in more than 1,200 cases (included in the total figure of 12,585) between July and December 2021," according to the report.

Audio-video court proceedings transcription system and equipment are operational in smart courts constructed under JMP, JSSIP and in all courts in four out of Azerbaijan's six court jurisdictions, i.e. a total of 66 courts. The project reports progress semi-annually; figures are as of December 31, 2021. The roll-out of the e-Courts in the remaining two regions of Ganja and Shirvan is underway and expected to pick up speed as COVID-19 restrictions are lifted, the report says.