Testimonial - Mauritius Commercial Justice Project

When disputes occur in the commercial world, investors need assurances that disagreements will be resolved quickly, efficiently and transparently. Mauritius, one of Africa’s most highly ranked countries for ease of doing business by the World Bank, recently completed a project in partnership with ICF to improve its commercial justice system.

The Judiciary of Mauritius had identified computerisation of the commercial justice system as a priority in order to enhance the efficiency of the Judiciary and ensure commercial justice could be dispensed quickly and transparently. The Judiciary approached ICF for funding in 2009. Implementation started in January 2010 and is expected to be completed in just eighteen months.

The project will set up a Mediation Division in the Supreme Court where all commercial cases will be dealt with before going to full trial, establish an e-filing system to speed up the pre-trial procedure and create a Fast Track Commercial Court in the Commercial Division of the Supreme Court where the time taken from filing to judgement will not exceed 36 days. The project aims to reduce the time of a full trial from 180 days to a maximum of 100 days and the number of procedures from 10 to six.

Benjamin Marie Joseph, Acting Deputy Master and Registrar of the Supreme Court of Mauritius, commented: ‘Personally, I have had the opportunity of working with ICF on a number of occasions. The first time was when I acted as the President of the High Commercial Court in Rwanda when Rwanda was launching its new commercial courts as part of the Rwanda Investment Climate Project (RICP). After I came back from Rwanda, I was invited by the Mauritian Judiciary to assist in the present project funded by ICF as Project Director and I attended the ICF Summit in Tanzania in May 2010.

I have been impressed with ICF’s approach at all levels. ICF assistance is not about imposing a predefined solution on beneficiaries, it is about facilitating the country’s own goals, taking into account the local context and specificities. ICF means business in the sense that it insists on things being done well through strict monitoring, implying adherence to a predefined project implementation schedule, regular reporting, requiring the beneficiary to account for shortcomings and delays and so on, which is indeed important when providing financial assistance for a specific purpose.”

ICF Project Activity