Explainer: How e-filing works

At the start of this month the Judiciary embraced digital court, doing away with physical filing of cases.

The platform called e-filing was recently launched by Chief Justice David Maraga.

Under the new electronic system all lawyers, police, DPP and members of the public are required to register through https://efiling.court.go.ke to log into the Judiciary system. One has to have an email address to log in.

One can log into the system as a litigant or lawyer. It has an option, once logged in, where one indicates the type of case being filed and checks the filing fees.

On the platform one comes across E-Case Registration, E-Payment, E-Case Search, E-Calendar and E-Service.

The first step is to sign up to create an e-filing account for your law firm.

One has to have a valid email address, have all case documents in soft copy and in PDF format and properly named, eg affidavit, annexures, plaint, etc.

Litigants and lawyers need to have sufficient money to pay court fees via M-Pesa.

Also required is the ID number, email and phone number of the parties being represented and an email address of the party being sued to facilitate E-Service Notification.

Once one logs in one has to indicate the type of user—it could be a law firm, an individual or an organisation.

Then one is required to enter their contact details and click next. Enter the log in details and password then click next.

The next step is to confirm the details page.

Immediately an email verification will be sent to the user's email address for account activation. Once the account is activated one can now file their case and pay the necessary court filing fees.

The files are then submitted to the registry online to be placed before a judge for hearing.

The system gives each case a unique file number that can be used to track the progress from filing to judgment.