Antecedentes

The formal justice system of Bangladesh is burdened with huge case backlogs due to lacks in system and procedural reforms and improvements resulting in limited access to justice opportunity for the vulnerable groups of people. Strengthening the formal justice system and the rule of law is a priority for the Government of Bangladesh and the Supreme Court. There is also increasing demand for improvements in the administration of timely, affordable and equitable justice. Therefore, the Supreme Court with UNDP's technical and financial support has undertaken a project, known as JUST (Judicial Strengthening) to strengthen its capacity to administer the court system efficiently and reduce the case backlogs which would provide a sustainable foundation to improve access to justice for the public, especially, vulnerable groups such as the poor, women and children.

JUST (Judicial Strengthening) project focuses on four outputs:

• Improved case management in the Supreme Court;
• Improved strategic planning and administrative capacity of the Supreme Court;
• district courts deliver improved services for court users; and
• Strengthened training capacity on case-management; all of which are inter-weaved and linked with the business process of the courts.

To attain the intended objectives of the project, an efficient case management automation system in line with the ICT Master Plan should be in place to reduce the case backlogs. This assignment is designed to mapping the business process of the justice system of Bangladesh to frame an efficient case management system for the Judiciary through identifying the regulatory, procedural and interlocutory constraints which are responsible for the huge case backlogs, complexity, procrastination and inadequate case management system causing delay and suffering for the general court users and limiting access to justice to the vulnerable groups of people.

Therefore, a detailed documentation of the courts process i.e. the judicial and administrative functions of the court from lodging an application or complaints to final delivery of the judgment and its execution has to be reviewed and an improved case management system for high court and appellate division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh and an advanced case management mechanism at district level has to be designed.

The International Consultant: ICT Specialist will report to the CTA of JUST Project and will work in a team with other national consultants to develop a detailed ICT Master Plan for the judiciary of Bangladesh. The Consultant will also work in close collaboration with ICT Manager of the project.

Deberes y responsabilidades

Objectives of the assignment/service:

General objectives:

The general objective of the assignment is to assist the Supreme Court of Bangladesh to harness the potential benefits of ICT in supporting Supreme Court’s basic values of transparency, accessibility and accountability in executing its critically important functions in dispensation of quality justice. The plan therefore is to develop a 10-year ICT Master Plan for the Supreme Court of Bangladesh with effective implementation strategy. 

The following are the specific objectives of the assignment:

• To strengthen Supreme Court’s ICT infrastructure by providing a solid implementation framework and endow Supreme Court with an ICT strategic plan;
• To bridge the divide between the public and Courts by accelerating and extending the deployment of adequate ICT infrastructure, including hardware, software and skilled human resources, in Supreme Court and sub-ordinate courts;
• To bridge the divide between the public and Courts by promoting citizens’ access to information and proceedings;
• To provide guideline for the optimal utilization of ICT within Court so as to enhance internal efficiencies and accelerate court business processes;
• To develop a implementation strategy of the ICT Master Plan;
• Realize efficient Court with transparency and high productivity through ICT;
• Enhance each court staff’s ability to utilize ICT;
• Create a competitive environment through enhancing efficiency and productivity through ICT technology.

Scope of work:

The International Consultant will be based at UNDP-JUST office, with frequent travel to the other 3 project districts. The consultant will work under direct supervision of the Chief Technical Advisor, and in close coordination with ICT Manager, JUST Project. The International Consultant will perform the following tasks:

• Conduct ICT Need Assessment Study of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh;
• Analyze best practices and improvement strategy for the justice systems of Bangladesh in line with ICT for development;
• Identify the current state of ICT readiness, identify gaps and chart way forward;
• Produce a detailed ICT Master Plan in line with the Need Assessment Study for the Supreme Court of Bangladesh and submit the report to the Supreme Court for final comments and submit the final product to the Supreme Court for approval and ensure approval of the document;
• Work closely with the project team in arranging consultation workshop and present the ICT Master Plan document in the workshop for getting feedbacks;
• Accommodate the feedbacks in order to produce final draft ICT Master Plan document and get the approval from the relevant stakeholders on the changes;
• Submit the final Draft to the Supreme Court and UNDP for final review and accommodate the final comments and get the document approved by the Supreme Court;
• Review of business level requirement specification of integrated Court Case Management System in line with ICT Master Plan and formulates concrete implementation strategy of the automation for the Supreme Court;

ICT master plan methodology:

The assignment will be carried out three sequential phases of status and environment analysis, design of To-Be model and setup of implementation roadmap.

Master Plan Kick-off

• Setup Work Plan;
• Kick-off Meeting;

Analysis Status and Environment:

• Analysis of Environment;
• National ICT Policy;
• Court ICT Policy;
• Focus Group Discussion;

Analysis of Status

• Existing System;
• Ongoing Initiatives;
• Law & Regulations;

Identification of Major Issues and Opportunities

• Identification of issues and opportunities;

Design To-Be Model:

• Establish Vision and Strategy;
• Establish Vision & Mission;
• Guiding principles;

Present Core Project and Task

• Present core project and task to achieve vision;
• Define core tasks;
• Present the findings among stakeholders;

Implementation & Roadmap:

• Setup Roadmap and Implementation Plan;
• Setup roadmap and action plan;
• Accommodate feedbacks;
• Get final approval from the stakeholders;

Deliverables/Outputs of the assignment/service:

• The consultant will perform the all related (including suggestive and external) activities to come up with a report that will work as the first draft of the ICT Master Plan for implementing Information and Communication Technology in Judiciary of Bangladesh. Specifically, the report should contain, but not limited to, the following components.

Mission, Vision and guiding principles:

• IT department Mission;
• IT department Vision;
• Guiding Principles;

Outline of effective information management for the Supreme Court to ensure that it delivers high quality services for the benefit of the Judiciary, staff and all who use the Courts.

Assessment of Existing and Past Initiatives

• It is expected that the consultant will assess all available material including existing software applications, project documents, study reports and all other available materials to comment on the usability of the systems, lessons to learn and replicate in any future initiative;

Identification of Major issues and opportunities

Business Process Reengineering

• The section will suggest methods to make access to justice and availability of information more litigant friendly, reform of age-old judiciary process might be required;
• This section of the report needs to highlight such changes required to accommodate ICT friendly processes, including case filing, escalation, record keeping and recruitment of lower court staffs;

Implementation Strategies

• This strategy is for a period of five years from 2006 to 2010. An outline implementation plan is suggested in this report;
• Phase-wise implementation strategy in the higher and lower courts;
• List of perceived risks that might impose challenges in implementing the ICT based initiatives;

Phasing of action plan with cost analysis of each phase

• Provide phase-wise and activity-wise cost evaluation;
• A suggestive budget should also be provided in the report.

Tentative payment schedule:

Deliverables:

• Gather and review existing business process, rules of business, orders, procedure with regard to case management and courts procedures; and develop a plan to carry out the assignment Tentative time line: Within 7 days of the contract commencement. Payment: 10% of the contract value;
• Prepared draft report on ICT Master Plan in line with the need assessment study, consultation meeting with relevant stakeholders.Tentative timeline: Within 20 days of contract commencement. Payment: 40% of the contract value;
• Facilitate and present the draft report in a workshop and collect feedbacks; Tentative timeline: Within 30 days of contract commencement;
• Ensure accommodation of the feedbacks on final draft ICT Master Plan document and get the approval from the relevant stakeholders on the changes to be made; Tentative timeline: Within 35 days of contract commencement. Finalize the ICT Master Plan document with the approval of the Supreme Court and submit it to UNDP; Tentative timeline: Within 40 days of contract commencement. Payment: 50% of the contract value.

Period of assignment/service:

• The assignment is expected to take a maximum 40 working days within a period of 3 months.

Inputs: From UNDP

• Office space and necessary logistics for the consultant;
• Arrangements (vehicle, security clearance) for official travel;
• Workshops/meetings/trainings will be organized according to work plan submitted.

Inputs: From the consultant

• All deliverables mentioned in this TOR as per work plan will be achieved by time specified;
• Bring own laptop computer.

Progress controls and payment installments:

• Payments will be made based on the delivery as specified in the ToR under the certification of the Chief Technical Advisor based on progress towards the deliverables.

Supervision and performance evaluation:

• The consultant will be paid based on the delivery as specified in the ToR on the basis of submission of successful progress/results reports and certification of Chief Technical Advisor, JUST Project.

Competencias

Technical competencies:

• Good knowledge and understanding of the MDGs, human development and the international development agenda.;
• Good knowledge and understanding on development planning processes;
• Knowledge of and exposure to a range of cross-sectoral and cross-cutting issues (such as women empowerment, gender equality, special approaches for addressing the circumstances of marginalized groups), that can be expected in to accelerate progress in achieving MDGs;
• Knowledge of the MDG Acceleration Framework (MAF);

Functional competencies:

• Excellent speaking and writing skills in English are necessary;
• Excellent analytical skills;
• Strong IT skills, including ability to work regularly with MS Word, MS Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint;
• Uses information and internet technology applications effectively as tool and resource;
• Proven cross-cultural communication; Excellent communication and report writing skills with capability of developing flow charts and diagrams are highly anticipated.

Corporate competencies:

• Demonstrates integrity and fairness by modeling UN values and ethical standards;
• Displays cultural and gender sensitivity and adaptability;
• Treats all persons fairly without favoritism;

Habilidades y experiencia requeridas

Academic qualifications:

• Professional degree in ICT or related field.

Experience:

• A minimum of 10 (ten) years of progressively responsible and relevant experience in the field of development;
• Working experience with government or international organizations on ICT related matters;
• Experience in designing large ICT based automation system;
• Knowledge on government procedures and system will be an asset;
• Experience of working with senior govt. and judicial counterparts and capable of handling difficult situation;
• Excellent communication and report writing skills with capability of developing flow charts and diagrams are highly anticipated;
• International work experience in developing countries, especially working in the justice field is required. Experience in South Asia will be an asset;
• Prior experience with the UN agencies/projects and/or international organizations and/or government, preferably related to the justice sector would be an advantage;

Language:

• High degree of fluency in written and spoken English.

Other:

• Ability to travel regularly to the project areas.

Evaluation of the Candidates:

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology:

Cumulative analysis:

The candidates will be evaluated through Cumulative Analysis method. When using the weighted scoring method, the award of the contract will be made to the individual consultant whose offer has been evaluated and determined as:

• Responsive/compliant/acceptable; and
• Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation.
  

Only candidates obtaining a minimum of 49 points in the technical evaluation would be considered for Financial Evaluation.

Technical Evaluation Criteria (Total 70 marks)

• Experience in designing and implementing customize large-scale ICT project in line with the organization’s objectives (15 marks);
• Experience of designing and implementing of court administration/case management system/Enterprise Resource Planning and demonstrate capacity to undertake thorough needs assessment study for government organization (25 marks);
• Knowledge on court business processes and demonstrate expertise in process analysis and developing ICT framework for larger government organization (10 marks);
• International work experience in developing countries, especially working in the justice field is required. Experience in South Asia will be an asset  (10 marks);
• Demonstrated understanding of donor funding mechanisms and work experience with UN/UNDP/development partners desired; and Knowledge of UNDP business processes will be an added advantage (10 marks).

Financial Evaluation (Total 30 marks)

All technical qualified proposals will be scored out 30 based on the formula provided below. The maximum points (30) will be assigned to the lowest financial proposal. All other proposals received points according to the following formula:
                      p = y (μ/z)
where:
p = points for the financial proposal being evaluated
y = maximum number of points for the financial proposal
μ = price of the lowest priced proposal
z = price of the proposal being evaluated

Documents to be included when submitting the proposals

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

• Explaining why they are the most suitable for the work;
• Provide a brief methodology on how they will approach and conduct the work (if applicable).