Fédération des barreaux d’Europe
Supporting an E-justice strategy for the European Bars Federation
European institutions have decided to undertake an e-justice programme. They are making it a priority.
In May 2008 the European Commission published a document entitled "Towards a European strategy for the e-justice question". It intends that recourse to information and communication technologies will improve the citizen’s access to justice, and effective legal action understood as all kinds of activity which resolves litigation or gives penal sanction to a certain kind of conduct.
The Commission’s priority is the creation of a European e-justice portal for helping citizens and enterprises to find access to justice in Europe. This portal will have three principal functions :
1. the access to information (legal documentation describing a piece of legislation) 2. orientation toward existing legal information sites and registers already connected throughout Europe, 3. direct access to certain European processes (the European procedure for small claims, the European procedure for injunctions to pay, …).
The Commission published an "action plan for European e-justice" which was adopted under the French Presidency on 7th November 2008 to which has been annexed the 2009-2013 longer term programme for European e-justice.
The first version of the portal is planned for late 2009. The European Commission is currently calling for tenders on an ambitious scale to compile the information which will be shown on the site. The first call for tenders was about Family Law. The notaries’ profession was awarded it. The files will accordingly be prepared by notaries and published on the European Commission e-justice site to inform all citizens of the Union about Family Law. Two other calls for tender are planned for June : the “rights of victims” and the “rights of the accused”.
At the same time, the Commission intends to develop the video conference for civil as well as penal matters. The European Bars will have to come to a decision. The citizen’s interest and the respect for fundamental rights, especially confidentiality and professional secrecy, will have to be respected.
A true, secure space for lawyers must be created to permit the Law Societies and Bars to cooperate on administrative and other matters. The Law Societies and Bars cannot afford to ignore the growth of this e-justice programme. They must prepare for it and think it out, transmitting their opinions and proposals to the Federation of European Bars so that they might try and influence the current debate and submit concrete proposals coming from the presidents of the Bars and of the Law Societies and Bars themselves..
Michel BENICHOU