The Ju­di­cia­ry of Trinidad and To­ba­go marked an his­toric mile­stone this past Fri­day, with the sev­enth an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tion of Court­Pay, the coun­try’s first na­tion­al on­line pay­ment sys­tem for court-re­lat­ed trans­ac­tions.

Held at the TTIFC's In­no­v­a­tive Cen­tre, the event com­mem­o­rat­ed a plat­form that has trans­formed how cit­i­zens across T&T in­ter­act with the ju­di­cial sys­tem.

Since its launch in 2018, Court­Pay has processed $847.51 mil­lion in pay­ments in­volv­ing 312,363 pay­ments and 20,761 cas­es, ac­cord­ing to a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Court­Pay, who at­tend­ed the event on Fri­day.

Court­Pay has re­port­ed 99.9 per cent up­time, mak­ing it one of the most re­li­able gov­ern­ment dig­i­tal ser­vices in the re­gion, said the rep­re­sen­ta­tive in a news re­lease.

Orig­i­nal­ly de­vel­oped by lo­cal fin­tech com­pa­ny Wi­Pay to han­dle child main­te­nance pay­ments, Court­Pay now sup­ports a wide range of court-or­dered oblig­a­tions in­clud­ing fines, fil­ing fees, and at­tor­ney li­cens­ing. With fea­tures like on­line card pay­ments, top-up vouch­ers avail­able at over 1,000 NL­CB Lot­to booths, and bank ac­count deb­its, Court­Pay of­fers full ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty—even to un­banked cit­i­zens.

The Ju­di­cia­ry has con­sis­tent­ly pro­mot­ed the plat­form not just as a tech­no­log­i­cal tool, but as a na­tion­al en­abler of ac­cess.

In his speech at the open­ing of the 2019 law term on Mon­day, Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie ad­dressed crit­ics of Court­Pay, who were chal­leng­ing its use.

“I see dou­bles ven­dors us­ing Linx. How could it, the set­ting up of Ju­di­cia­ry ac­counts for fines and fees we im­pose, be con­trary to the sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers. The Ju­di­cia­ry has al­ways been a rev­enue col­lect­ing cen­tre and a very re­spon­si­ble one at that. It has to be poli­cied and en­forced. We seize prop­er­ty and con­duct auc­tions, so please, be­fore you tell us how to run the place, it might be help­ful to ed­u­cate your­self.”

Ad­dress­ing the open­ing of 2020 law term, Archie told his au­di­ence that they would have heard of Court­Pay, main­ly in the con­text of main­te­nance pay­ments, but it is much more than that.

"Our e-ser­vices plat­form is about mak­ing ac­cess eas­i­er for at­tor­neys and lit­i­gants. We are mar­ry­ing the build­ings with ap­pro­pri­ate tech­nol­o­gy and in­ten­sive staff train­ing so that you will get a faster and more seam­less ex­pe­ri­ence," said Archie.

Speak­ing on Fri­day, John Out­ridge, CEO of the Trinidad and To­ba­go In­ter­na­tion­al Fi­nan­cial Cen­tre (TTIFC) said, “Court­Pay rep­re­sents what’s pos­si­ble when in­no­va­tion meets na­tion­al pur­pose. As we look ahead, plat­forms like this will not on­ly mod­ernise pub­lic ser­vices, but re­de­fine the re­la­tion­ship be­tween cit­i­zens and the state. We see this as the foun­da­tion for a tru­ly dig­i­tal na­tion—one where tech­nol­o­gy works for every­one, every­where.”