On Wednesday, the European Commission adopted several initiatives to digitalise EU justice systems, making them more accessible and effective. The aim of the measures is to make digital communication channels the default channel in cross-border judicial cases, thus translating one of the priorities set out in last year's Communication on the Digitalisation of Justice into action. 

In the EU's internal market today, many legal disputes between citizens and businesses take place across borders. Also, to fight cross-border crime more effectively, different Member States and judicial systems need to work hand in hand. Investigative authorities and courts of different Member States need to cooperate and support each other in the investigation and prosecution of crimes and exchange information and evidence securely and swiftly.

The Commission has adopted the following initiatives:

1 - Digitalisation of cross-border judicial cooperation

The proposals on digitalisation of EU cross-border judicial cooperation and access to justice in civil, commercial and criminal matters will address two main problems: inefficiencies affecting cross-border judicial cooperation and barriers to access to justice in cross-border civil, commercial and criminal cases. This Regulation will:

• Enable parties to communicate with competent authorities electronically or to initiate legal proceedings against a party from another Member State.
• Allow the use of videoconferencing in oral hearings in cross-border civil, commercial and criminal matters, which will result in speedier proceedings and less travelling.
• Ensure the possibility of digital transfer of requests, documents and data between national authorities and courts.

Shifting communications, which are still exclusively paper-based today, to the electronic channel would not only have a positive environmental impact, but it would also save time, as well as up to approximately €25 million per year across the entire EU in postage and paper costs.

2 - Digital information exchange in terrorism cases

There will be two proposals to effectively fight terrorism and other forms of serious cross-border crime. Currently, Member States send information on judicial cases related to terrorism to Eurojust via various, often insecure channels, for example via emails or CD-ROMs. In addition, Eurojust has an outdated information system, which is not able to crosscheck information properly. The initiative's objective is to modernise these practices. The Regulation will:

• Digitalise the communication between Eurojust and the Member States' authorities and provide secure communication channels.
• Enable Eurojust to effectively identify links between prior and ongoing cross-border terrorism cases and other forms of serious cross-border crimes.
• Based on the identification of such links, Member States will be able to coordinate their investigation measures and judicial responses.

3 - Development of the JITs Collaboration Platform

This is a proposal for establishing a collaboration platform for Joint Investigation Teams (JITs). These teams are set up for specific criminal investigations by two or more States. Although these teams have proven to be successful, practice shows that they face several technical difficulties. Exchanges are currently overly slow and burdensome. A dedicated IT platform would allow JITs to more easily share information and evidence and to more safely communicate with each other so that they can jointly manage their operations.

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