Legal practitioners in Lagos, Nigeria have expressed concerns over difficulties they are experiencing while using an electronic case filing system that the judiciary introduced.

State chief judge, Justice Ayotunde Phillips, introduced the e-Case Management System last year to ease case administration in the sector.

Through the system, all practicing lawyers in the state are expected to file their cases online. All payments are also made online.

However, lawyers who have been using the system say that instead of fast-tracking cases, the system is slowing the dispensation of justice.

Barrister Victor Ayeni says the system is slow because it was a combination of the old manual filling process and the electronic process.

According to him, every lawyer in the state is required to file their suit in paper form while the court staff upload the court filings to the online system for onward processing and assignment.

“When the new electronic filing system was introduced by the current chief judge, we saw it as a welcome development. We thought it would make thing easier but with what we experience now just to file cases, I can tell you that it is a wrong idea.

"To make things worse, after filling your hard copy, you will now have to wait for a court staff to refile it for you electronically," he said.

He thus called on the judiciary authority to either scrap the electronic system or modify it to make it easier for practitioners to use.

Another lawyer, Ben Umudjoro, expressed frustration in using the online platform alleging court staff are capitalising on the system to delay cases.

“The system is just full of delays. After completing the manual filing process, you will still have to wait until somebody uploads the document online before you can access it.

"Again after that, you will still wait for days before to see if it has been assigned. Sometimes, that one alone takes another two to three days. The process is just endless,” he said.

He added that the court management should fix a time frame within which all electronic filing must be processed to avoid the current delays in the system.