UIHJ-E-justice: Contacts with the European Commission

The meeting was held at the European Commission in Brussels. The delegation of the UIH was led by its president, Leo Netten, and included its general secretary, Francoise Andrieux, and our fellow-member Alain Bobant, consulting expert. Amélie Leclercq, desk officer at the European Commission, Directorate general JFS, Unit E.1 was also present.

The objective of this meeting was to contact the European commission to evoke E-justice and training, matters that the UIHJ places in the middle of its actions for the next years. After having presented the UIHJ to Mr. Gartska, Leo Netten indicated its orientations in these two fields.

Mr. Gartska evoked the ambitious project of an E-justice portal which should help the citizen to easily find the professional whom he seeks and adapted to his needs. It will be up to the professions to fill the portal by giving all useful information for example the spoken and understood language by each judicial officer. From this portal it should be possible to reach the extranet websites of the professional bodies and for this reason to have a certified identification. The considered functionalities will be listed. However, Mr. Gartska specified that this great project, which will happen, was for the moment postponed. However, there is a pilot project called “Storck” which will be used in the portal for the E-justice field.

Alain Bobant specified that he was asked to establish cartography to give a progress report on the state of computerization in the European countries. “One of the objectives of E-justice within the UIHJ is to make it the authority of root certification. That proves to be necessary. Today, there are too many certification authorities. That makes the use of electronic signature difficult” declared our fellow-member. These words found an echo near the representative of the European Commission who admitted having identified the same problems.

Mr. Gartska added that there exists an action plan for the E-justice pilot project which will be set up in 2010 including a protected network of electronic exchanges for in particular the transmission of legal documents. For that a consortium having to include at least six Member States must be created. It was indicated that the UIHJ could be associated with this consortium.