The Council of Sofia Bar Association, together with the Milan Bar Association and Association of Women Lawyers held an international conference on topic "E-JUSTICE: Bulgaria - opportunities and challenges. Italy - realization and experience. Good European practices."
The conference was held with the participation of leading Bulgarian experts in the field of e-justice, which have participated in the preparation of a Guidelines about the rules that will governing the implementation of e-Justice in Bulgaria. The Italian side was presented by lawyers and specialists in organization and management of organizational processes who have participated in the implementation of electronization of the civil procedure in Milan Bar Associationand in general in Italy.
The lecturers att. Hristo Koparanov and att. Emiliyan Arnaudov, Managing partner of "Popov & Partners" Law Office presented to the guests the nature and scope of e-justice, as well as their views on the benefits to which its implementation would entail. They highlighted a number of problems of the judicial system who may be affected by the electronisation: greater speed, less cost, more transparency, less corruption and so on. At the same time, the challenges and the risks concealed within the e-justice were not omitted and specific recommendations on how to achieve the best results with the least negatives were given. The lecturers pointed out the possibility of proceedings in which the plaintiff and the respondent are not required to appear in person in the court sessions to be distributed among all district judges, regardless of the city in which they are located and thus the uneven workload of the courts to be reduced. Data have been submitted that more than half of the cases in the busiest courts are exactly on this type of proceedings. It was recommended that all government bodies and lawyers necessarily have to work in an electronic format and use an unified email in relation to justice. It was also recommended that the citizens should have a permanent electronic address, and the legal entities – electronic address of management. As a possible opportunity in the future was presented the idea part of the processes to be performed automatically. The creation of access points to the judicial system in smaller settlements is recommended. According to the lecturers this would reduce the social impact of the reform, while simultaneously creates the presence of the state wherever in the Country. It was emphasized that electronization will facilitate the access of handicapped persons and persons with reduced visual abilities.
The guests from Italy revealed their experience of implementation of the electronization, talked about the attitude of the magistrates towards innovation, and demonstrated practically how the work on an electronic case is carried out. Impression made that the benefits that the Bulgarian experts theoretically expect to happen after electronization actually occurred in Italy. Specifically, data were presented about the reduction of the time that a case takes and concrete results in the fight against corruption.
The lecturers discussed also good practices in other European countries such as Portugal and Spain.
