EN Official Journal of the European Union C 182/2

MULTIANNUAL EUROPEAN E-JUSTICE ACTION PLAN 2014-2018

2014/C 182/02

I. INTRODUCTION

1. On 6 December 2013, the JHA Council adopted the new Strategy on European e-Justice 2014-2018 (1). This Strategy defines the general principles and objectives of European e-Justice and sets out general guidelines for the establishment of a corresponding new multiannual European Action Plan on e-Justice during the first half of 2014.

2. This Action Plan, as set out in the Annex, contains a list of the projects considered for implementation in the 2014-2018 period, with an indication of the participants, actions for their practical implementation and an indicative timetable, where possible, with a view to allowing a concrete follow-up of the Action Plan by the Working Party on e-Law (e-Justice).

3. This second multiannual European Action Plan on e-Justice aims to build upon the work already undertaken and to continue this positive development at national and European level. This work should also be seen as part of a broader evolution towards a European area of justice in the context of ongoing discussions on the future development of the Justice and Home Affairs area.

4. During the discussions held under the Lithuanian Presidency in autumn 2013 and continued under the Hellenic Presidency in the first half of 2014, there has been substantial consensus among Member States regarding further development of e-Justice as one of the cornerstones of the efficient functioning of justice in the Member States and at European level.

II. ACTION PLAN

5. The implementation of the Strategy requires a comprehensive Action Plan designed to improve the overall functioning of e-Justice systems in the Member States and at European level.

6. With regard to the Strategy on European e-Justice (2014-2018) (2), and without prejudice to national projects and developments in the area of e-Justice, the European e-Justice Portal, hosted and operated by the Commission in line with the Council guidelines, is key to the delivery of e-Justice at European level.

7. This objective is reflected in the annexed list of projects in the area of access to information in the field of justice, access to courts and extrajudicial procedures in cross-border situations, and communication between judicial authorities.

Projects

8. The development of European e-Justice should include actions at both European and national level in the area of e-Justice.

9. For all new and existing e-Justice projects, special attention should be paid to achieving the broadest possible participation base, in order to ensure meeting users’ expectations, long-term viability and cost-efficiency of those projects. New projects developed under European e-Justice must therefore have the potential to involve all the Member States of the European Union, and all Member States should be encouraged to participate in all projects on a voluntary basis.

10. To achieve this, new projects with a possible impact on European e-Justice planned by the Member States and not included in the Annex should, to the extent possible, be discussed first within the Working Party on e-Law (e-Justice) for an overall assessment of the practical and other relevant aspects of the project. This would also ensure that the needs and views of other Member States and the Commission are properly taken into account and avoid duplication.

11. In the planning of future work, an adequate balance between innovation and consolidation should be sought. For reasons of cost-efficiency and taking into account the limited resources available, existing projects should be continued and expanded to include a maximum number of Member States before starting any new ones. The considerable developments which have taken place in the Member States in this area in recent years, however, show that new emerging and innovative projects in the area of justice should be encouraged.

Project financing

12. The Member States should cooperate among themselves on a voluntary basis to ensure financing of the proposed projects.

13. The Commission will continue to finance the development, operation and translations of the European e-Justice Portal and to provide funding opportunities for e-Justice projects of added value, for example under the Justice Programme (2014-2020) (3) or under other programmes such as the Connecting Europe Facility (4) or ISA (5) or its successor programme.

A. Access to information in the field of justice

1. Information through the e-Justice Portal

14. To ensure a coordinated approach, a regular work plan should continue to be presented by the Commission at the beginning of each six-month period.

15. The e-Justice Portal should continue to provide general information to citizens, businesses, legal practitioners and the administration of justice about EU and Member State legislation and case law, as well as providing access to EUR-Lex and N-Lex.

16. The Portal should also be a means of offering access to specific information in the field of justice at national, European and international level.

17. Moreover, to improve the efficiency of the e-Justice Portal, a survey on user needs will be carried out. Additional activities aimed at making the Portal more user-friendly should also be undertaken.

18. Information on or interconnection with systems developed as part of initiatives undertaken by members of the legal professions, such as lawyers, notaries and judicial officers, should continue to be considered for inclusion in the e-Justice Portal in consultation with the relevant stakeholders. Initiatives by other relevant stakeholders, such as mediators or judicial experts, could also be taken into account in the future.

19. As regards the information content of the Portal, content providers, including in particular the Member States and the Commission, are responsible for the accuracy and updating of the information on their respective content pages. At least once per year, content providers should review and, if necessary, update the information they have provided.

2. Registers

20. The European e-Justice Portal should also provide a single access point via interconnections to the information in national registers with relevance in the area of justice managed by national public or professional bodies facilitating the administration of and access to justice, provided that the necessary technical and legal preconditions for such interconnections exist in the Member States.

21. Action in this area should be focused in particular on the interconnection of registers which are of interest to citizens, businesses, legal practitioners and the judiciary.

3. Semantic web

22. The development of effective means for the exchange of legal information across borders, and in particular data relating to European or national legislation, case law and legal glossaries (such as Legivoc) should be continued.

23. Different projects can address this issue and increase the exchange and semantic interoperability of legal data throughout Europe and beyond. Unique identification, common metadata and ontologies of legal information are the basic building blocks of the European legal semantic web.

B. Access to courts and extrajudicial procedures in cross-border situations

1. General aspects

24. Going to court and initiating extrajudicial proceedings in particular in cross-border situations should be facilitated through the availability of communication by electronic means between courts and parties to proceedings, as well as witnesses, experts and other participants.

25. Furthermore, the use of video conferencing, tele-conferencing or other appropriate means of long-distance communication for oral hearings, where appropriate, should be extended in order to remove the need to travel to court to take part in judicial proceedings, in particular in cross-border cases.

2. Cooperation with the judiciary and legal practitioners

26. The Member States’ judiciary and relevant legal practitioners (such as lawyers, notaries and judicial officers) should be involved in future discussions in the area of e-Justice to ensure that the solutions developed correspond to the actual needs of their possible target groups.

27. Such an arrangement would allow direct contact with these professional sectors, at which e-Justice is basically targeted, to discuss issues of common interest and to raise awareness of the latest developments in the area of e-Justice.

28. The Strategy on European e-Justice provides for the establishment of a cooperation mechanism with the judiciary and legal practitioners. In this context, an annual meeting with representatives of the judiciary and legal practitioners (such as lawyers, notaries and judicial officers) will be organised to allow a regular exchange of views with these target groups of professionals (6). These meetings will be organised in the form of specific items on the agenda for the regular meetings of the Working Party on e-Law (e-Justice).

29. Representatives of the judiciary and legal practitioners should be associated as much as possible with the work of the informal groups and the expert groups at the Commission as regards those projects which are of direct interest to them.

30. The European Judicial Networks in civil and commercial as well as in criminal matters play an important role in the development of e-Justice and the close collaboration with both networks should be continued.

C. Communication between judicial authorities

31. Development of electronic communication between the judicial authorities of the Member States, more specifically in the framework of instruments adopted in the European judicial area in the field of civil, criminal and administrative law, should be continued further (e.g. via videoconferencing or secure electronic data exchange).

32. In this context, the e-Justice Portal should continue to be developed as an efficient tool for use by legal practitioners and judicial authorities by providing a platform and individual functionalities for effective and secure exchange of information, including via the e-CODEX network.

D. Horizontal issues

1. General aspects

33. Certain aspects relating to future action are of a more general nature and cover different domains in the area of e-Justice. Development of large-scale IT projects, such as e-CODEX, has been successful, and the integration and follow-up of the results of the e-CODEX project into the e-Justice Portal should be ensured (7).

2. Prioritisation of work

34. The projects to be included in the Action Plan as set out in the Annex have been divided into two different categories — ‘A’ and ‘B’ projects (8):

35. The list of ‘A’ projects has the first priority. These are projects that meet one of the following criteria: a) projects which arise out of an obligation established by a European Union legal instrument (9); or b) ongoing projects based on the Action Plan 2008-2013 which have been accepted by the Working Party on e-Law (e-Justice) (10).

36. ‘B’ Projects are projects which do not fall within category ‘A’, but which a) meet the objectives defined in the European Strategy on e-Justice for the period 2014-2018; and b) were considered to be of particular importance by the Working Party on e-Law (e-Justice), taking into account the subject matter, in order to achieve the objectives defined in the European Strategy on e-Justice.

37. During the follow-up monitoring of the implementation of this Action Plan, the Working Party on e-Law (e-Justice) will establish which of the ‘B’ projects included under paragraph 36 should be implemented as a priority, taking into account the available human and financial resources and also the principles of action as set out in paragraph 9.

38. To allow for the necessary flexibility in the implementation of this Action Plan, the Working Party on e-Law (e-Justice) may also decide to introduce new initiatives or to move projects from one category to another in the light of new developments.

3. Screening of legislative proposals

39. In order to ensure consistent use of modern information and communication technology in the implementation of new EU legislation in the area of justice, e-Justice should be mainstreamed into all future legislative instruments adopted in that area, without affecting the remit of the relevant Council Working Party. For this purpose, all future legislative instruments should be screened before their adoption and the Working Party should be able to give advice, if necessary, in order to ensure that the possible use of e-Justice systems is always taken into account.

E. External relations

40. Cooperation with non-EU countries in the area of e-Justice should be continued, with due regard for the institutional rules established at EU level. Non-EU countries should be encouraged to adopt technological solutions and information models comparable to those used within the EU in this area, so as to create an interoperable environment for future voluntary cooperation.

41. Acceding countries and other interested non-EU states could also be involved as regards specific items to be defined in the context of e-Justice, such as videoconferencing and discussions in the context of e-CODEX.

42. The Working Party on e-Law (e-Justice) should examine what kind of contacts should be established with specific non-EU countries.

F. Governance structure

43. A solution for the consolidation of the results of implementation of this Action Plan, such as the results of the e-CODEX project, should be further explored. It is also noted that the overall working structure put in place in the multiannual European e-Justice Action Plan 2009-2013 (paragraphs 57-63) shall be applicable in the context of the implementation of this second Action Plan.

G. Follow up

44. At least once per semester the Working Party will monitor the implementation of the Action Plan, which should be adapted, if required, in the light of future needs and developments. It should be borne in mind that the implementation of the actions as set out in the Annex will involve considerable cost and/or an increase in the administrative burden both for the Member States and for the Commission. There should therefore be careful prioritisation of the projects by the Working Party on e-Law (e-Justice).

45. Informal groups of the Member States involved in specific projects can meet in order to make progress in those areas of work. The details of organisation of the work of these informal groups are set out in a separate document.

46. The Council will assess the implementation activities in the first half of 2016 and will suggest any action to improve the functioning of e-Justice.

III. CONCLUSIONS

47. Coreper/Council is invited to endorse this Action Plan at its meeting on 6 June 2014.

(1) Published in the Official Journal on 21 December 2013 (2013/C 376/06).

(2) It should be noted that paragraph 17 of the European Strategy on e-Justice 2014-2018 indicates that ‘European e-Justice should strive for further consistency with the general framework of e-Government, […].’.

(3) Regulation (EU) No 1382/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 December 2013 establishing a Justice Programme for the period 2014 to 2020.

(4) Regulation (EU) No 1316/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2013 establishing the Connecting Europe Facility, amending Regulation (EU) No 913/2010 and repealing Regulations (EC) No 680/2007 and (EC) No 67/2010.

(5) Decision No 922/2009/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 September 2009 on interoperability solutions for European public administrations (ISA).

(6) The Working Party should prepare such meetings in advance, in particular by defining the target groups of professionals that should participate in these meetings. As regards representatives of the judiciary, it should be up to each Member State to indicate the representative for such meetings.

(7) These themes could be further explored under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF).

(8) The Working Party on e-Law (e-Justice) also considered other projects of interest which were not retained as A or B projects, but which could be reconsidered at a later stage by the Working Party.

(9) Time limits fixed by such instruments must be respected in the context of implementation.

(10) To the extent that the results of such projects are to be integrated into the e-Justice Portal, a decision on their priority for integration will be taken by the e-Law (e-Justice) Working Party after considering their added value in view of other initiatives and the available resources.