Electronic justice as a means of implementing the principle of accessibility of civil proceedings

Abstract

In this article, the problems of successful implementation of the principles of justice under the conditions of continuous scale up of informatization and digitalization are considered. The advance of technology has caused substantial transformations in the procedural relations, as long as in the substantive ones. These changes have already had an inevitable impact on the judicial system. Notably, using advanced technology for the sake of procedural economy is unacceptable when it fails to ensure the fairness of legal proceedings, thereby violating the principle of equality of the participants of civil proceedings. It is concluded that informatization is neither a principle of justice nor a tool to enhance the efficiency of justice, which is contrary to many views presented in the literature on this problem. It is rather a means to level up and improve the system of civil proceedings, as well as to most efficiently implement the principle of procedural economy and other procedural principles. It is suggested that simplification of civil procedure and its adjustment to the peculiarities of electronic justice, further development of electronic document flow, elaboration of a unified legislative approach will favor the occurrence of a unified legislation.

Keywords

• informatization
• digitalization
• electronic justice
• principle of procedural economy
• principle of accessibility