STENOGRAPHY, A JUDGE's DEPENDABLE ALLY IN SPEEDY JUSTICE DISPENSATION: A CALL FOR REFORMS AS AKWA IBOM HIGH COURT COMMENCES NEW LEGAL YEAR



STENOGRAPHY, A JUDGE's DEPENDABLE ALLY IN SPEEDY JUSTICE DISPENSATION: A CALL FOR REFORMS AS AKWA IBOM HIGH COURT COMMENCES NEW LEGAL YEAR

By ~ Meti M. Ukpeh, Esq. 

INTRODUCTION 
The High Court of Akwa Ibom state, a fast-growing state in economy and legal jurisprudence, has just ended its two months vacation and crowned the opening of a new legal year with a two day ceremony which ended on the 13/10/22. There is no doubt that most courts in Nigeria are still religiously tied to using the conventional long hand in recording proceedings in courts. This practice is not pragmatic and susceptible to the mordern digital realities; hence becoming lagging, boring, time-consuming and avoidably, a clog on the wheel of justice. Below will navigate the remedial route, hope and succour that trail the deployment of stenography in our courts. 

WHAT IS A STENOGRAPHY? 
Loosely put, this is the practice of transcribing speech (primarily for later dictation or testimony), usually using shorthand.
A stenographer is a person trained to type or write, in shorthand method, as quickly as people speak. Stenographers can create lasting documentation of everything from court cases to any conversations and obviously useful in many legal settings, 
Akwa Ibom High courts, even Magistrates' court and Customary courts, respectively, can deploy stenography in effect, efficient and expedient justice delivery. Modern-day stenographers use shorthand typing machines called stenotypes. These machines evidently allow stenographers to type at a rate exceeding 300 words per minute. In comparison, an average speaking speed is about 150 words per minute. This incredible rate of writing lets a high-quality stenographer keeps up with complex conversations, even when multiple people may be speaking in a court or event setting.
Functionality of Stenography
Verily, today’s stenographers use stenotype machines that enable shorthand writing. These stenotype machines work by typing in syllables rather than letters. Writing a word like “witness” only requires 2 strokes instead of the 7 we use on a regular keyboard. However, in order to create complex and varied sounds as quickly as possible, each stroke on a stenotype will typically involve multiple keys. By pressing two keys at once (called a “chord”), they can make the syllable “wit”, then “Ness". In the time it takes us to type seven (7) individual letters, a stenographer can type an entire word with the help of a stenotype machine.

Because of this condensed form of typing, a stenotype keyboard has only 22 keys. This is opposed to normal computer keyboards, which have between 70 and 105 keys. The stenotype can be so condensed because of the chord system — by combining keys you have hundreds of combinations to make different syllables quickly. Thanks to modern technology, stenotype machines can automatically compare the syllables written to a standard or custom dictionary and output the corresponding English. The computer adds spaces and interprets words, and while not always perfect, gets better with each iteration of stenotype technology.

It is the strong recommendation of this writer that Akwa Ibom High Court, through the major stakeholders in the justice sector, Ministry of Justice, the Judiciary, the NBA, et Al,  should deploy stenography in our justice dispensation with specialized and/or, highly trained stenographers. Their extra training and certifications make the documents they create admissible as evidence in court. For this reason, it is crucial that a court stenographer be completely accurate in their shorthand typing, so no important words or phrases are missed that could make or mar an attorney’s case. Additionally, these court stenographers must learn an entire set of legal vocabulary and processes that they will use in the courtroom---an unskilled court stenographer could break a case or result in a criminal walking free.
No doubt, a more viable complement and/or substitute for stenographers that is already being used in few but advanced courtrooms is digital court reporting. Here,  courtroom proceedings are simply recorded as digital audio, then after the proceeding a less trained (and less expensive) typist transcribes the record at a slower pace. The problem that many digital court reported records run into is inaudible moments. Often a microphone will sizzle or a witness moves away from the microphone, resulting in difficult-to-hear and impossible-to-transcribe moments on the record. In high-stakes criminal justice, this can have massive impact. A live stenographer has better hearing and can ask for a statement to be repeated if they miss a few words.

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