HI-TECH has come to the Bhutanese courts

In the first step of the first major computerisation of the country's courts, 20 District and two Dungkhag courts will be equipped with computers through a project funded by the Danish government.

"So far we have computerised nine District courts and we hope to computerise all the 20 district and two Dungkhag courts within this year, "Sangay Khandu of the High Court told Kuensel.

Eight district courts of Paro, Thimphu, Haa, Chhukha, Wangduephodrang, Punakha, Trongsa, and Tsirang and the Phuentsholing Dungkhag court received their equipment and software recently while the Wamrong Dungkhag court and the other district courts will receive later in the year.

Except the Thimphu District court, which was given two computers because of the larger number of cases it handles, the other district courts will be equipped with a computer each.

Thirty five computers were purchased at a cost of Nu. 6.193 million under the project.

"The purpose of the computerisation is to make the work easier and systematic and also to reduce paper work, "he said. "The computerisation of the various courts will help expedite the backlog of cases at the various District and Dungkhag courts around the country and the time taken to review cases will be considerably reduced."