Resolution on the e-Justice Action Plan 2014-2018

The European Parliament adopted a resolution tabled by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs on the e-Justice Action Plan 2014-2018.

It recalled that the first multiannual European e-Justice Action Plan covered the 2009-2013 period and sought to make justice and the legal system more accessible to citizens, and to improve the mutual understanding of practitioners and administrations by providing electronic tools for information and cooperation. The time has now come to decide on the e-Justice Action Plan for 2014-2018. Members considered that the EU’s Justice Programme 2014-2020 should allow for the funding of successful European and national e-Justice projects, which should have real European added value for citizens. It believed that legislative work, e-Justice projects and financial programme planning should be streamlined.

Recalling also that the e-Justice Portal was launched in 2010, Parliament emphasised the importance of the portal for the aim of building a true European judicial culture by hosting online tools for judicial training and it called on the Member States and the Commission to extend the applications available on the e-Justice Portal. 

Members welcomed the development of e-Justice tools to facilitate the use of certain EU instruments, such as the European Payment Order and the Small Claims Procedure, as well as information systems in the area of Justice and Home Affairs, notably the European Criminal Records Information System (ECRIS) and the Schengen Information System (SIS) II.

They considered that e-Justice was a means of enabling greater access to legal and judicial information, and to judicial and administrative proceedings, for both citizens and practitioners, and pointed out that e-Justice systems, by their very nature, tended to decrease the costs of judicial and administrative proceedings, in particular through automation of the exchange of information, the service of documents and the translation of certain procedural acts. In view of cost-efficiency considerations, projects should remain voluntary.