POLICY BRIEF – E-JUSTICE: PROGRESS, CHALLENGES, AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR BOOSTING THE USE OF DIGITAL SOLUTIONS IN THE JUSTICE

Digital solutions can contribute to improving the efficiency of the justice sector, increasing transparency, and enhancing access to justice. When used systematically and strategically, as well as inclusively as a mechanism to guarantee fundamental rights, e-justice solutions can support the promotion of the rule of law and protect human rights while also improving the effectiveness of justice systems and actors, bringing us closer to the concept of citizen-oriented justice.

The topic of e-justice is addressed within a national policy context that promotes the use of digital solutions and recognizes informatization as one of the priorities of the institutional reform of the judiciary as a whole.

Thus, it should be noted that in December 2021, the Strategy for Ensuring the Independence and Integrity of the Justice Sector for 2022-2025 and the corresponding Action Plan for its implementation were approved. This policy document establishes that modern justice, which ensures independence and efficiency, should be achieved by focusing efforts on three strategic directions: (1) the independence, responsibility, and integrity of justice sector actors; (2) access to justice and the quality of justice; (3) efficient and modern administration of the justice sector. Subsequently, the development and implementation of judicial information systems are proposed in the strategy as an objective to increase the efficiency of activities carried out in the justice system, reduce delays and costs, and improve access to justice.

Moreover, the independence, integrity, and efficiency of justice, and ensuring the rule of law through the completion of a comprehensive justice system reform, represent one of the fundamental actions assumed by the Republic of Moldova in the context of its European path and the implementation of the National Action Plan for the Accession of the Republic of Moldova to the European Union.

Information technologies, as described in the 2021 Strategy, can contribute to improving the act of justice, increasing trust in the judiciary, and consequently achieving the goals arising from the European integration agenda and the sustainable development of a state oriented towards the needs of its citizens.

Additionally, for the context of this analytical note, we will also refer to the Digital Transformation Strategy, approved in September 2023 by the Government of the Republic of Moldova, one of whose objectives is to establish an efficient, intelligent, and transparent digital state (General Objective No. 4), as well as to integrate the vision of combating corruption into digital solutions. By increasing the level of transparency, impartiality, and accountability, digital systems will contribute to reducing corruption, increasing trust in institutions responsible for upholding the rule of law, and the digitization of processes in the justice sector aims for the use of digital services in judicial processes to account for at least 30% of the total number of cases.

At the European level, the 2030 Digital Compass: the European way for the Digital Decade, mentions as the fundamental European aspiration in the digital field to empower citizens and businesses. Thus, the EU’s objective is to ensure that by 2030, democratic life and public services online will be fully accessible to everyone, including people with disabilities, and that they will benefit from a high-quality digital environment, providing easy-to-use, efficient, and personalized services and tools, with high standards of security and privacy. Digital transformation must also favor the building of modern and efficient justice systems, ensure the respect of litigants’ rights, and increase the effectiveness of public actions, including law enforcement and investigation capabilities. Access to justice must be maintained and keep pace with changes, including digital transformation, which is a cross-sectoral dominant of the time and affects all aspects of our lives.

On the other hand, the Council of Europe, as early as 2020, mentioned that the continuous digitalization of judicial systems has enormous potential to continue facilitating and improving citizens’ access to justice. Digital tools can contribute to better structuring of procedures and the automation and acceleration of the management of standardized and uniform tasks, thus increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of procedures before courts, as well as contributing to the resilience of the justice system. The Council also emphasized the need to promote digital competencies in the justice sector to enable judges, prosecutors, justice staff, and other justice practitioners to effectively use digital tools while appropriately respecting the rights and freedoms of those seeking justice.

In the Republic of Moldova, the digitalization of the justice sector was initiated as early as 2009 when the first version of the Integrated Case Management Program (PIGD) was developed and launched, as a measure to respond to and prevent human involvement in the process of case distribution in courts and to improve the efficiency of court activities. Digitalization efforts continued with the Court Hearing Audio Recording System (FEMIDA), the National Courts Portal, the videoconferencing system, and the e-Case Judicial System.

Today, these systems are modules of the Judicial Information System, regulated by Government Decision No. 794/2018, which represents a range of means and systems intended for the informatization of the sector and which outlines the concept of e-justice.

The extent to which the Judicial Information System translates the concept of citizen-oriented justice, facilitates access to justice, and guarantees the fundamental principles of justice from the perspective of a user and consumer of justice and related services, will be analysed in this note. We will also try to understand the barriers to the full production launch of those systems that have been piloted for more than 10 years, how prepared the justice system is to operate fully in digital format, and the prospects of an integrated, interoperable e-justice system that encompasses all stages and actors in the administration of justice.