The Cook Islands Ministry of Justice is moving from Excel spreadsheets to a new case tracking system (CTS) which will improve management of its court cases.

A Ministry of Justice media release said the new system replaced an outdated system that relied on Excel spreadsheets and antiquated applications.

“Implementing CTS provides for greater efficiency and enhanced accuracy to manage court cases from their inception until they are properly adjudicated,” the release said.

“With the implementation of CTS, the Ministry of Justice has modernized its court case management, which will also allow for greater reporting, tracking, analysis, monitoring, and scheduling of court cases.”

CTS was developed by the Pacific Judicial Strengthening Initiative which was funded by the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and run by the Federal Court of Australia.

The Cook Islands is the sixth jurisdiction to have deployed CTS, following the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Federated States of Micronesia National Supreme Court, and Pohnpei Supreme Court.

Implmentation of CTS took 10 weeks and saw close to 18,000 cases being loaded across 42,000 court listings involving over 10,000 party records.

“For the first time, this information is now visible and available to all judiciary and court administrators no matter their physical location,” the release said.

Secretary of Justice, Tamatoa Jonassen said: “The implementation of CTS is a significant achievement and improvement for our court system, and adds great value to the Ministry of Justice.”