It sets out a list of projects and initiatives (‘actions’) to be implemented as part of the 2019-2023 European e-Justice Strategy. The Action Plan also indicates:
the goals of individual actions and the envisaged activities;
the participants;
the expected contributions of the stakeholders involved (citizens, companies, legal practitioners and judicial authorities).
KEY POINTS
e-Justice
The aim of e-justice is to improve and simplify access to information in the field of justice, as well as to support the digitalisation of cross-border judicial and extrajudicial procedures. It is not limited to one particular field of law and includes a wide variety of stakeholders.
The European e-Justice Portal is a single, multilingual, user-friendly access point to the European e-justice system. It is the main tool developed for improving access to information in the field of justice at European level. It also includes a number of functionalities and interactive electronic services, i.e. tools to find a lawyer and a company, interactive forms supporting EU legal procedures, etc.
interoperability (i.e. the ability of information communication technology systems and of the business processes they support to exchange data and to enable the sharing of information and knowledge);
the European dimension (in civil, criminal and administrative law).
The 2019-2023 Strategy builds on the 2014-2018 Strategy and aims to further improve access to justice by continuing digitalisation in the field of justice. It is consistent with the principles and objectives of European e-Justice, and ties in with the more specific aims set out in the Action Plan. The Strategy defines 3 main areas:
access to information;
e-communication in the field of justice; and
interoperability.
Access to information
The Action Plan includes projects to improve:
general information in the field of justice — further developing the e-Justice Portal;
access to data sets — providing data relevant for the access to justice;
access to legal information — improving the EUR-Lex website, interlinking legal data, defining the role and applications of artificial intelligence in the field of justice.
e-Communication
The Action Plan includes projects to improve:
secure exchange of data — developing an option for electronic payment of court fees, and the possibility to communicate online with the judicial or national authorities of the EU countries through the e-Justice Portal;
secure communication between citizens, practitioners and judicial authorities — further developing tools for direct communication between citizens, legal practitioners, the judiciary and national authorities, for example, via cross-border videoconferencing.
Interoperability
The Action Plan includes projects to develop:
e-CODEX — maintaining the e-CODEX system and implementing pilot projects for the exchange of forms, documents and structured data through the system;
semantic interoperability — allowing communication between different systems by:
aligning the terms used and using voice recognition tools to allow automatic transcription of speech;
Commission Decision 2014/333/EU of on the protection of personal data in the European e-Justice Portal (OJ L 167, , pp. 57-60)
Council conclusions inviting the introduction of the European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) and a minimum set of uniform metadata for case law (OJ C 127, , pp. 1-7)