Digitalization of justice in Lithuania
ENOn December 2, 2020, the European Commission adopted The Communication on Digitalisation of justice in the European Union. Its aim at the national level is to help member states strengthen the implementation of digital technologies in various national judicial institutions, whereas at the European level it aims to further improve cross-border judicial cooperation. By introducing it, Vera Jourová, Vice-President for Values and Transparency, emphasized that: “Justice systems need to keep pace with digital transformation and to respond to the expectations of citizens. As national courts are also European Union courts, we strongly support this new approach to digitalisation of justice systems. It will improve access to justice and cooperation in the EU’s area of freedom, security and justice, and the functioning of the internal market.” Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, said that “everyone working in the field of justice needs to stand up to the challenges of the 21st century. This includes the whole new world of Artificial Intelligence, which we need to explore in full respect of the fundamental rights. The recent Covid-19 crisis has been a strong reminder of the need for a rapid digitalisation of justice”. The push of the European Commission for national justice systems to go digital as soon as possible is not unexpected. For example, in European Union 2020 Strategic Foresight Report it was recognized that it is extremely important to promote the digital transformation of public administration institutions and justice systems throughout the European Union, The European Ethics Charter on the use of artificial intelligence in judicial systems and their environment was adopted in Strasbourg on December 3–4, 2018, encourages the use of artificial intelligence in online dispute resolution, the synthesis of technology and justice systems is discussed in many other documents, adopted by various European Union institutions.Digitalization of public services has also been one of the main objectives of Lithuanian governments already for quite a long time. At the beginning of 2020, 55.3 per cent of institutions provided services via the E-Government Gateway, 97.6 per cent – by e-mail, 75.6 per cent – provided consultations on the website, 46.4 per cent – provided information services via social networks. At the beginning of 2020, 72.9 per cent of institutions provided a possibility to download various document forms, 47.4 per cent – to return filled-in forms. 39.5 per cent of institutions provided a part of services electronically. One of the best-known online platforms are developed for E-Health services, for Centre for Registers, eservices for State Tax Inspectorate or e-portal for legal acts. Word “GovTech” is relatively well known in Lithuania. For instance, the GovTech Lab Lithuania is a team in public sector focused on encouraging the creation and use of innovative solutions for the government. Courts are no exception. For quite a long-time steps have been taken to create and to developways that administration of courts and court proceedings could be organized digitally. First steps were taken even a bit earlier as in other public institutions. In EU justice scoreboard electronification in Lithuanian courts has been also noticed. While speaking about digitalization of court proceedings in Lithuania, such aspects are usually discussed: electronic e-services of procedural documents; recording and storage of records of court hearings; electronic random allocation of cases to judges; electronic management of information and documents in court cases; informational pre-trial investigation system and remote court hearings. This article will explain the most important initiatives in Lithuania to introduce and promote digitalization of court proceedings (mainly in civil and administrative proceedings) in Lithuania.
