The Council Presidency and the European Parliament have reached a preliminary agreement on the proposal for a regulation on e-Codex. The main purpose of this system is to digitize cross-border judicial communication and improve access to justice for citizens and businesses.
"A modern justice system, resilient to crisis situations, is crucial to ensure citizens' right to access to justice and a fair trial. The agreement reached is an important step in this direction. It will make e-Codex the digital backbone of judicial cooperation in civil and criminal matters within the EU. The e-Codex regulation will provide a sustainable system that will allow judicial authorities to communicate easily and quickly incross-border proceedings. This was one of the priority dossiers of the Slovenian Presidency and we are pleased that we were able to reach a compromise text quickly." - Marjan Dikaučič, Slovenian Minister of Justice
The digitization of justice should facilitate access to justice, improve efficiency overall, and ensure the resilience of justice systems to crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The e-Codex system(e-Justice Communication through Online Data Exchange) is an important technological and digital tool to modernize cross-border judicial communication.
e-CODEX ensures that IT systems used by judicial authorities are interoperable. It allows different national e-justice systems to be connected so that data related to files in civil and criminal cases can be exchanged.
This system has been in development for several years and is currently still managed by a consortium of member states and other organizations. The compromise provides for the long-term management to be transferred to eu-LISA, in order to establish a sustainable legal framework.
That agency should take over responsibility for the e-CODEX system on July 1, 2023 at the earliest and December 31, 2023 at the latest. The preliminary text includes provisions to safeguard the independence of the judiciary, details on the governance and management structure of eu-LISA, and opportunities for member states to contribute to the further development of e-Codex.
The preliminary agreement must still be approved by the Council and the European Parliament before the regulation can be formally adopted.
The e-Codex system consists of a suite of software components that enable connectivity between national systems. Users (competent judicial authorities, lawyers and citizens) can quickly and securely send and receive documents, legal forms, evidence or other information electronically. In this way, e-Codex ensures interoperable and secure decentralized communication networks between national IT systems in cross-border cooperation in civil and criminal matters. For example, e-Codex already supports the digital system for the exchange of electronic evidence, as well as exchanges related to European investigation orders and mutual legal assistance in the field of judicial cooperation in criminal matters.
