State Secretary Juro Martinović participated in the Summit for Digitalisation of Justice, held from 12 to 14 June in Ohrid, North Macedonia.
The conference organised by the Ministry of Justice of North Macedonia and the OSCE brought together numerous judicial officials, representatives of academia and state officials from Europe.
State Secretary Martinović pointed out in his presentation that technological changes have profoundly transformed societies, and that the justice systems must adapt to these changes.
“One of the basic strategic goals highlighted in Croatia’s National Development Strategy until 2030 is to achieve an efficient and effective judicial system that will contribute to economic development and respond to public expectations of further strengthening of the rule of law”, said the State Secretary.
Speaking about the digitalisation of the judiciary, he stated that one of the key activities carried out in Croatia was the implementation of the e-Filing (e-Spis) system and the e-Communication system.
The e-Communication system allows users to submit applications and other submissions with attachments to the court, signed with a qualified electronic signature.
e-Communication is already operational in all commercial, municipal and county courts as well as the High Commercial Court of the Republic of Croatia and the Supreme Court, and from January 2022 also in administrative courts. The system has more than 70,000 users.
The e-Filing (e-Spis) information system was developed to serve the needs of courts and their business processes. It is a single application for registering and tracking all relevant data related to court cases. Data from e-Spis are available to non-court users via additional interconnected systems such as e-Communication, e-Case, e-NoticeBoard, etc.
State Secretary Martinović pointed out that a specific component within Croatia's National Recovery and Resilience Plan was dedicated to modern judiciary prepared for future challenges and reform measures and to increasing the efficiency of the judicial system for the purpose of increasing citizens’ trust.
“The Ministry of Justice and Public Administration is committed to achieving the objective of establishing a regulatory, technological and organisational framework that will help reduce backlogs and shorten court proceedings and bring focus on transparent and efficient management of the justice system. This is supported by the National Plan for the Development of the Judiciary”, concluded State Secretary Martinović.
The State Secretary was accompanied at the summit by Ministerial Adviser Matija Paljug.
News
