Chief Justice Vincent Lunabek speaks at the launch of the Women and Children’s Access to the Formal Justice System in Vanuatu. Photo: UN Women/Murray Lloyd
The Vanuatu Chief Justice has confirmed that court records were lost in the ransomware attack on government agency computer systems late last year.
Vincent Lunabek said the courts were able to save some offline data concerning the registration and completion of cases as of the end of October 2022.
Justice Lunabek said during November and December, when the government network had been forced offline, court officials took steps to continue registering and complete cases manually.
He said they can restore missing data in the court system, and do data entry for registered cases since November back into the system.
But he said these cases will have new case numbers and therefore the courts will be issuing notices to all parties and/or their lawyers with those new numbers.
Justice Lunabek said cases from June through to October will be checked and updated.
This will include case status, parties, listings, listing outcomes, charges, charge outcomes and documents.
In early December, Prime Minister Ishmael Kalsakau said 70 percent of government computer servers were now back in operation following the cyber attack.
But he also warned that the risk of future cyber-attacks on the Government network remained.
