A Document Management System for Judiciary Administration in Akwa Ibom State

Court document management in Akwa Ibom State judiciary, South South Nigeria, faces challenges including delayed file retrieval, physical record deterioration, and lack of centralised case tracking. This project builds a document management system for the Akwa Ibom State Judiciary, digitising case files, cause lists, judgments, and correspondence records. The system is developed using ASP.NET Core MVC and SQL Server, with role-based access for judges, registrars, clerks, and lawyers. The spiral development model is applied, incorporating legal data sensitivity risk assessments at each cycle. Features include case file upload and indexing, full-text search, case status tracking, hearing schedule management, automated cause list generation, and audit logging. System evaluation was conducted over three months at the Uyo High Court, involving 12 judicial officers and 20 court registrars. Findings show that case file retrieval time dropped from an average of 45 minutes to under 4 minutes, and hearing scheduling conflicts were eliminated through the centralised calendar system. The study emphasises the need for end-to-end encryption and off-site data backup, both of which were implemented and validated during testing. This research provides a deployable judiciary records system replicable across Nigeria's 36 state judiciaries, contributing to justice delivery efficiency in the South South zone. Keywords: document management, judiciary, Akwa Ibom State, case tracking, legal technology