Tag: e-justice

Editorial of December 2020

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Alessandra Silveira, Joana Covelo de Abreu and Pedro Madeira Froufe (eUjust Jean Monnet Module Members - https://eujust.direito.uminho.pt).

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Brief insights on e-Justice paradigm and the de facto digitalization of justice in the European Union – answers for the plural crisis (the endemic and the pandemic)?

e-Justice is a paradigm that has been strengthened since the adoption of the latter Council’s e-Justice Action Plan and Strategy for the period of 2019-2023, where digital platforms and technological instruments are perceived as the way to further deepen reciprocal trust in the EU administration of justice (following previous arrangements made under e-Justice Action Plan 2014-2018).

However, as the Commission points out, the “[e]xperience with the COVID-19 crisis shows the need for justice systems [to] function under challenging circumstances” since, insofar, “[e]ffective access to justice in the EU is hampered by paper exchanges and the need to be physically present” and it needs to be scalable to a new development environment as “[d]igital technologies have the potential to make justice systems more accessible and efficient”.

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Editorial of September 2020

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by Alessandra Silveira, Joana Abreu and Pedro M. Froufe, Editors and Jean Monnet Module eUjust Team

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The German Presidency of the Council of the European Union – the European digital path in justice fields in times of COVID-19


On the 1st July 2020, the Federal Republic of Germany has received the task of holding the Presidency of the Council of the European Union until the 31st December 2020, as this European Institution operates through a system of rotating presidency. This Member State will be closely working in a group of three – the so-called “trio” – which will also be composed by Portugal and Slovenia.  

Therefore, as the world is still struggling with the COVID-19 pandemic, it is experiencing a “time of unprecedented crisis”, which has to be strongly addressed by this presidency and has to be perceived as its transversal priority so a more resilient European Union can emerge from this challenge.

Insofar, the motto of this Germany’s presidency is “Together for Europe’s recovery” since, as Chancellor Merkel underlined, “[w]e know that we can only master this extraordinary crisis in the best possible way if we work together”, “together” has to mean the engagement of governments, parliaments and citizens all across Europe.

Under the Programme for Germany’s presidency[i], “[o]nly by containing the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the long term, investing in Europe’s economy, fully exploiting our innovative potential and strengthening social cohesion can the European Union and its Member States overcome the crisis effectively and permanently”. As crisis were always doors that led to new opportunities in the European Union, this presidency believes there is a need to “focus [the] attention on the major transformation processes of our time such as climate change, digitalisation and the changing world of work”.

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Editorial of July 2020

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 by Joana Abreu, Editor and Jean Monnet Module eUjust Coordinator

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e-Justice in times of COVID-19 – someone pushed fast-forward?
Follow-up on the eUjust Jean Monnet Module “EU Procedure and credits’ claims: approaching electronic solutions under e-Justice paradigm”

We have already stressed the impact new information and communication technologies (ICT) are able to have on justice administration throughout Europe.

In fact, when Digital Single Market was developed, and interoperability was the method adopted, the EU established the need to pursue the paramount of e-Justice.

Insofar, as derived from the Council’s 2019-2023 Strategy on e-Justice, e-Justice paradigm “aims at improving access to justice in a pan-European context and is developing and integrating information and communication technologies into access to legal information and the working of judicial systems” since “[p]rocedures carried out in a digitised manner and electronic communication between those involved in judicial proceedings have become an essential component in the efficient functioning of the judiciary in the Member States” (paragraph 1).

In order to achieve this, the elected method was the one of interoperability, which was firstly recognised in the implementation of e-Government. However, as the time went by, it was elevated to a general principle of EU law, not only relevant on e-Government but also on e-Justice fields (see, on the matter, paragraphs 8 to 11 and 24 of the mentioned e-Justice Strategy), as it was perceived to be the less expensive and the most capable mean to put national digital solutions communicating among each other and to interconnect them to equivalent systems running before EU institutions, bodies and agencies.
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e-Justice paradigm and Artificial Intelligence (AI): where effective judicial protection stands?

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Artificial Intelligence Technology Futuristic

 by Joana Abreu, Editor

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2019 marks the beginning of a new era for e-Justice.

Looking at both Council’s e-Justice Strategy (2019/C 96/04) and Action Plan (2019/C 96/05) from 2019 to 2023, we are able to understand how this European institution is engaged to establish sensitivities on Artificial Intelligence in justice fields. Furthermore, the European Commission also presented a report on the previous Action Plan (Evaluation study on the outcome of the e-Justice Action Plan 2014-2018 and the way forward – Final Report – DT4EU), where it advanced the need to bet on artificial intelligence mechanisms in the e-Justice fields.

In fact, the European Commission, when questioned stakeholders on the possibility of using Artificial Intelligence technologies in the domain of justice, 41% understood it should be used and other 41% understood its potentialities could be explored.

Taking into consideration those numbers, the Council also established the need to understand AI’s influence and potential on e-Justice fields, addressing it under the topic “Evolutivity” and relating to future perspectives.
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e-Justice paradigm under the new Council’s 2019-2023 Action Plan and Strategy – some notes on effective judicial protection and judicial integration

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by Joana Covelo de Abreu, Editor

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Information and Communication technology (ICT) and digital tools are shaping the way new solutions are being implemented in EU Procedure and justice, in all European Union. In fact, through the Digital Single Market (DSM) political goal, new technological and digital approaches have been adopted and are now being widespread.

Under DSM’s strategy, e-Justice appeared as a paradigm to be settled using a method: the one of interoperability. But this method was also acknowledged by the 2016 e-Government Action Plan as a general principle of EU law: in fact, alongside elder ones such as transparency or efficiency others were settled, truly built on this new digital approach it is being aimed to be accomplished: the one of interoperability by default, the one of digital by default and the once-only principle. In fact, first approaches to stakeholders revealed the importance of the latter since, in an EU settled and developed around fundamental freedoms, economic agents were able to raise awareness among stakeholders of the need to overcome administrative barriers to similar proceedings in different Member States or before the European institutions. In fact, they were able to devise that they had to provide, for as many times as they initiated a proceeding, the same information and documents, when, in fact, the proceeding was similar, the petition was the same… That determined the emergence of the once-only principle, based on the need of reusing data across the EU. However, to do so stakeholders also understood those public services had to work through interconnected databases and operative systems – otherwise, the reuse of data would come difficult and the once-only principle would never get out of the table of intended measures. That was the perfect setting to bet on digital components, considering the first services to start this digitalisation update were public services.
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Editorial of June 2018

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 by Joana Covelo de Abreu, Junior Editor
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E-justice: e-codex as the interoperable solution to a judicial integration?

Digital Single Market has become a new political calling for the EU as it can promote both economic growth and sustainable development.

Some secondary public interests were devised in order to promote it and to achieve its goals. Then, EU is engaged on delivering those solutions and it is doing so through its shared competences [Articles 2(2) and 4(2) of the TFEU].

On the matter, from early on the European institutions devised interoperability as the method to be implemented – as an ICT concept, “the European Interoperability Framework promotes and supports the delivery of European public services by fostering cross-border and cross-sectoral interoperability”, where judicial services are also included. This interoperability scheme was deepened under ISA2 Programme (Decision No. 2015/2044), standing for “the ability of disparate and diverse organizations to interact towards mutually beneficial and agreed common goals, involving the sharing of information and knowledge between organizations, through the business processes they support, by means of the exchange of data between their respective ICT systems” [Article 2(1) of the mentioned Decision].

Taking this method as a referral, both Member States and European institutions have to be able to interconnect their systems to promote data exchange. This definition entails three main dimensions: a technical, a semantic and an organisational interoperability since it addresses not only the electronic solutions that have to be achieved but it will also impact on the way the involved agents communicate and shape the organisations where they are included.
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