The ECOWAS Community Court of Justice has launched its Electronic Case Management System, describing it as the most significant digital transformation in its history and setting a target to become a fully paperless regional court by 2030.

Unveiled at the court’s Abuja headquarters, the multilingual platform marks a shift from decades of largely paper-based administration towards a system designed to make litigation faster, cheaper and more accessible to over 400 million citizens across the 15 member states.

Court President Justice Ricardo Cláudio Monteiro Gonçalves said the launch was far more than new software, calling it the start of an era in which technology strengthens access to justice and transparency, while stressing that judicial decisions would remain anchored in law.

The system operates in English, French and Portuguese, letting lawyers file cases electronically, receive notifications, track proceedings in real time and join virtual hearings from anywhere, while automating registry operations. Lawyers in cities such as Dakar, Accra and Monrovia can now file without travelling to Abuja.

Project Team Manager Marie Saine said the platform was conceived under the court’s Justice 2030 plan and traced its roots to the COVID-19 pandemic, when temporary measures showed digital justice was both possible and more efficient. The court built a bespoke system tailored to its rules and trained practitioners across member states ahead of the launch.