Case Management Information System

Case Management Information System

Project info 

The Case Management Information System (CMIS) Projectis a joint collaboration of the Kosovo Judicial Council (KJC) and the Kosovo Prosecutorial Council (KPC) funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for which we are grateful, along with their support of the Kosovo judiciary through other projects. IMG is in charge of the financial and administrative management of the Project ensuring the successful implementation of the project.

The development and the deployment of the CMIS in the Courts and Prosecution of Kosovo will significantly increase transparency and efficiency in the Judiciary field and will ensure the availability of data on court cases, improve ability to manage case flows through abandoning the slow and inaccurate manual procedures which are currently used in the Kosovo judiciary.

The CMIS implementation period, from January 2014 to December 2018, includes a five year period during which the Project Preparatory Phase has carried on with the duration of 18 months. The Main Phase of the Project was implemented from July 2015 to 31 of December 2018, and the Project Consolidation Phase, which is a continuation of two preceding phases of the Project, will operate until the end of 2021.

Project Location 
Kosovo
Value 
9,990,300€
Duration 
12/2013 to 06/2022

Donor

Sector

IMG Role

Implementing partner

Objectives 

The overall objective of this project is to establish a foundation for a more efficient, transparent and accountable judiciary in Kosovo through introduction of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), which among others, include:
Transformation of Kosovo courts into e-courts, and prosecution offices into e-prosecution
• Proactive court and prosecution offices management based on real- time data and reports
• Availability of on-line services and information for citizens through the judicial web portal

Outcomes
The following were the primary goals of the CMIS Project accomplished during the project's Preparatory Phase:
1. Functional Specifications of CMIS, drafted by courts and prosecutors’ office
2. Establishment of testing environment
3. Establishment of User Working Group
4. Legal and regulatory framework analysis to be adapted prepared for the CMIS use
5. Engagement of end users in the implementation of the project
6. Evaluation of Hardware equipment and Equioment Purchase plan (of the main phase)
7. Implementation Detailed plan (for the main phase)
8. Basic ICT trainings and writing skills for all Kosovo courts and prosecution end users/ employees (Basic ICT training). Approximately 1200 court and prosecution staff trained in OS, Outlook, Word, IE, Excel etc.

The main objectives and benefits from the implementation of the CMIS Project’ Main Phase are as follows:
• Process and data Standardization
• Automation of processes and reduction of repetitive processes
• Data Integration
• Work Management Efficiency
• Efficient communication between judicial institutions
• Increasing work transparency
• Enables to create criminal files and access by each judicial institution (if adequate permissions are provided)
• The possibility of creation of comprehensive reports at the Kosovo level
• Enables to create criminal files and access by each judicial institution (if adequate permissions are provided)
• Establishing of the new and powerful equipment that will provide effective and sustainable services for all users
• Publication of statistical reports on the Internet

With the successful completion of the two previous phases of the CMIS Project, the donor decided to fund a new phase of the CMIS Project entitled ”Consolidation Phase of the CMIS Project”. The objective of this phase is to support the KJC and KPC for a transition phase in its capacity building to take over the project continuation after the consolidation phase of the project. This phase will last for three years (2019 - 2021), and will focus on three main pillars:
- Continuation of providing training and user support services for end users
- CMIS enhancement and improvement and
- Assist the KJC and KPC in building in-house capacities to take over the project.

In the Consolidation Phase, the CMIS Project successfully implemented the following activities:
• CMIS for Criminal, Civil and Minor Offence cases implemented in 27 out of 29 total courts. CMIS in prosecution offices implemented in 9 out of 10 prosecution offices. Training teams engaged in the Prishtina region are training the Appellate Court staff on the use of CMIS and the processing of cases entirely electronically. Since the beginning of the CMIS implementation 122 out 134 end users have been trained in total. The rest of the trainings are expected to be completed by the end of April.
• Automatic Case Assignment roll out for all basic courts began in February 18, 2020. For this purpose, KJC adopted the criteria for the automatic case assignment on January 29, 2020. From June 1, 2020 piloting of the automatic case assignment began for Basic Prosecution in Ferizaj and lasted until June 19, 2020. The automatic case assignment roll out for all prosecution offices began on June 22, 2020.
• First phase of the interoperability of the CMIS of Courts and Prosecution developed and is being used. On September 30, 2020, implementation of the interoperability began for all basic courts and basic prosecution offices of Kosovo. Interoperability is operational.
• Case backlogs registration in the CMIS system completed for all Basic Courts and the Appellate Court, thus 79,728 backlog cases registered in the system.
• Piloting of the abolishment of manual registry books implemented in the pilot court in the Basic Court of Ferizaj and in the pilot prosecution office in the Basic Prosecution of Ferizaj. After the successful implementation of the pilot plan for the removal of the manual admission registers in the Basic Court of Ferizaj, from June 22 to September 15, 2020. To this end, on December 7, 2020, KJC approved the plan to remove manual registries from use in all Kosovo courts.
• Interoperability between CMIS and NCCR (National Centralized Criminal Registry) is developed. After legal framework is adopted, this function will enable data transfer from CMIS system to the NCCR system. Interoperability is developed and successfully tested. As well as the CMIS connection with CRA (Civil Registration Agency) and BRAK (Business Registration Agency of Kosovo) upgraded on November 2020, therefore data from these agencies are extracted via GG (Gateway Governance) link. Thus improving data quality in the CMIS system.
• An MoU is signed on March 9, 2020 for joint financing the maintenance and further development of the CMIS and the maintenance of the datacenter by KJC and KPC.
• CMIS training and rollout is implemented successfully in the Appellate Prosecution Office.
• All new cases are registered into the CMIS in all courts after the training and rollout of the system.