Antecedentes

Judiciary is a key governance and rule of law institution in a country which upholds the rule of law by resolving society’s disputes in a fair, timely and equitable manner. The constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh in Article 35 explicitly recognizes the right “to a speedy and public trial by an independent and impartial court or tribunal for every person.”

The United Nations General Assembly has also repeatedly underscored that an independent judiciary, among other things, is essential to the full and non-discriminatory realization of human rights and indispensable to democratization processes and sustainable development.

Backlog of cases is the biggest impediment in the judicial system of Bangladesh delaying the process of justice to the people which is a fundamental human right. Bangladesh currently has 3.4million cases backlogged in different courts including High court Division leaving millions of people unable to access legal redress to their complaints.

UNDP in partnership with the Supreme Court of Bangladesh has implemented Judicial Strengthening (JUST) Project which worked from 2012 - 2015 towards ensuring access to justice by addressing delays and backlogs of cases and also strengthening the Supreme Court Administration by establishing the well-equipped Registrar’s Officer. This backlog of cases created considerable pressure on the courts and leading to increased difficulties for people to access justice.

Until now UNDP Bangladesh through many periodic reform initiatives has been maintaining a successful working relationship and in this course, UNDP Bangladesh in collaboration with the Supreme Court’s Judicial Reform Committee will focus on voluminous case management mechanism and introducing contemporary best practices on case management in High Court Division, Supreme Court.

 Description of the Assignment

There are a number of reasons given for the slowness of the justice process in Bangladesh, such as the sheer volume of cases and weak case management system; the loopholes and complexity in the procedural laws and also the shortage of courts, and the complex pattern of the existing court administration. It has been recorded with several volume of cases in numerous civil and criminal cases originated from Subordinate Courts and taking long period of time to dispose. It has also been experienced difficulties by the judges to sort out the case volumes and identify the relevant evidentiial references from huge case dockets containing thousands of pages causing the delay in preparing the judgement. Specific technical expertise on administration of Voluminious cases in higher court and strengthening judicial leadership of High Court Judges is particularly sought within the scope of this assignment

Deberes y responsabilidades

Scope of work:

The scope of work for the Case Management Expert on voluminous cases of High Court Division, would be focused on the process reviewing/ mapping of voluminous case dockets in high court division, developing case management toolkit dedicated for voluminious case management in high court division, conducting validation workshop and judicial leadership sessions with High Court Judges and members of Special committee for judicial reform and introducing contemporary case management best practices including outlining the digitaization of case management towards ensuring quality, timely and accessible justice services.

Specific objectives:

• Providing technical expertise in the administration of most of the voluminious cases in higher court and strengthening judicial leadership of High Court Judges within the set of Rules and Procedure applicabble in the context of Bangladesh.

Deliverables:

The consultant should produce all deliverables by the dates. Supreme Court in collaboration with UNDP will take 2-3 working days to review the draft documents, action plans and share feedback with the consultant

Supervision and Performance Evaluation:

The Consultant will closely work with Supreme Court of Bangladesh and provide support to organize consultation workshop with facilities. UNDP will also provide necessary logistic supports if required.

The Consultant will report to the Cluster Head, Democratic Governance, UNDP.

Timeframe and Deadline:

The duration of contract will be 22 working days over a period of 02 months. Starts from July 2019.

Tentative payment schedule:

 Duty Station

Dhaka, Bangladesh. Workstation would be will be based at Supreme Court of Bangladesh and in UNDP Country Office, Bangladesh

Competencias

Professional Competencies

• Strong background in promotion of Rule of law and human rights, demonstrated knowledge on judicial reform mechanisms in developing countries;
• Excellent writing, IT and communication skills.

Behavioral Competencies

• Good interpersonal skills;
• Ability to take initiative and promotes a knowledge sharing and learning culture in the office;
• Ability to establish and maintain good working relationships to facilitate work goals;
• Demonstrable capacity to build knowledge through using various sources;
• Ability to plan, organize, implement and report on work;
• Positive, constructive attitude to work, effective problem solving, self-improvement, analysis and synthesis;
• Openness to change and ability to responds positively to feedback and differing points of view and integrates & updates accordingly; adaptability, creativity;
• Excellent presentation and facilitation skills;
• Demonstrates integrity and ethical standards;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality, age sensitivity and adaptability;
• Exhibit strong teamwork skills in a complex environment.
• Confident in demonstration of work;
• Remains calm, in control and good humored even under pressure.

Habilidades y experiencia requeridas

Academic qualifications:

Master’s Degree in Law/ International Law or related field.

Experience:

• At least 10 years of relevant working experience particularly in Case Management, Judicial dministration reform for Higher Court system.
• Prior experiences to work with UN/UNDP/ Donor agency or other international development agencies.
• Minimum 5 of years of Experience working with High Court or Supreme Court Judges and its Administration system.
• Working knowledge on usage office software package and case management software.

 Language:

Fluency in written and spoken English and ability to writing report is required.

Lump sum contracts:

The financial proposal shall specify a total lump sum amount, and payment terms around specific and measurable (qualitative and quantitative) deliverables (i.e. whether payments fall in installments or upon completion of the entire contract). Payments are based upon output, i.e. upon delivery of the services specified in the TOR. In order to assist the requesting unit in the comparison of financial proposals, the financial proposal will include a breakdown of this lump sum amount (including travel, per diems, and number of anticipated working days).

In-country travel (if required) will be met by UNDP and DSA will be paid as per UNDP policy. If unforeseen travel outside the Duty Station not required by the Terms of Reference, is requested by UNDP, and upon prior written agreement, such travel be at the UNDP’s expense and the Individual Contractor shall receive a per diem not to exceed United Nations daily subsistence allowance rate in such other location(s).

 Evaluation of the Candidates:

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology.

Cumulative analysis-

The award of the contract will be made to the individual consultant up on Cumulative Analysis/evaluation and determined as:

1. Responsive/compliant/acceptable; and
2. 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 marks in technical evaluation will be considered eligible for financial evaluation.

Technical Evaluation Criteria (Total 70 marks):

• Educational Qualification – 15 marks;
• 10 of Years of relevant working experience particularly in Case Management, Judicial administration reform for Higher Court system- 20 marks;
• 5 of Years of experience working with High Court or Supreme Court Judges- 15 marks;
• Prior experiences to work with UN/UNDP/ Donor agency or other international development agencies - 10 marks
• Working knowledge on usage office software package and case management software-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. Proposers who shall not submit below mentioned documents will not be considered for further evaluation.

• Personal CV or P11, indicating all past experience from similar projects, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the Candidate and at least three (3) professional references; P11 can be downloaded from the link below: http://www.bd.undp.org/content/bangladesh/en/home/operations/jobs/
• Brief description of why the individual considers him/herself as the most suitable for the assignment . A brief description of the assignment, detail break-down of the Work Plan and Methodology to carry out and complete the assignment.
• Financial Proposal: Financial Proposal has to be submitted through a standard interest and availability template which can be downloaded from the link below:

http://www.bd.undp.org/content/dam/bangladesh/docs/Jobs/Interest%20and%20Submission%20of%20Financial%20Proposal-Template%20for%20Confirmation.docx

Please combine all your documents into one (1) single PDF document as the system only allows to upload maximum one document.