The planned tiger leap of digitization in the judiciary and penal enforcement institutions is so far overshadowed by uncertainty about the solutions found by the project implementers and the users' ability to keep up with the technological challenges, concludes Neatkarīgā after reviewing the documents and listening to the officials responsible for the implementation of the e-case.
According to the plans for the e-case implementation, from December 1, 2023, cases will be heard in courts by reviewing a digitally entered set of case files, rather than by going through numerous paper volumes.
In 2026, even people in prison will be able to consult the digitized case file, depending on the prison mode, sitting in prison libraries or other specially adapted rooms in front of a computer. There, prisoners will be able to view their case digitally on the spot and appeal to the next instance.
By 2030, the European Commission's technical solutions will have been developed to the point where it will be possible to cooperate between the different competent authorities in the Member States in sending and receiving requests for legal assistance, investigation orders and European arrest warrants electronically.
This rosy picture of the life of the justice system in the digital world is painted by the laws and regulations adopted in Latvia and the explanations given to Neatkarīgā by officials of the Ministry of Justice.
The implementation of e-case is taking place, but not as rosy as envisaged in the legislation and as can be heard in the statements of officials.
In December 2021, Latvian courts were supposed to start viewing cases in digital format and the e-case website was to be operational. However, back in November, the President of the Constitutional Court, Sanita Osipova, and the President of the Supreme Court, Aigars Strupišs, expressed concerns that e-case may not become an "efficient working tool" for the courts, but on the contrary may hinder and complicate the work of the courts, especially due to insufficient information about the upcoming changes and technical support.
The situation with digitization is even worse in the State Police, where not all investigators are provided with digital tools for working in the e-environment. Meanwhile, in prisons digitization is still just a daydream, as several pieces of legislation need to be amended to, among other things, allow prisoners to get even close to a computer.
There is also conflicting information on the money spent on digitization. Officials point out that approximately €5 million will be spent on the development of the Probation Client Records System, the Court Information System, the Prosecution Information System, the Prisoner Information System and the e-case portal, while the Court Information System Development Project, which was due to be implemented by November 30, 2021, will spend €3,173,000 on the development of the Court Information System alone. Of this amount, €2,697,050, or 85%, is to come from the European Regional Development Fund, and €475,950, or 15%, is to be co-financed from the national budget. Former officials of the Ministry of Justice told Neatkarīgā that the ministry's ability to digitize has put it at the forefront in Latvia. This was also demonstrated by the ability of the court system to rapidly move to remote court hearings in the conditions of Covid.
Meanwhile, the National Audit Office reported in January 2021: "The organizational structure for the management and achievement of the objectives of the e-case program has not been defined and established to monitor the overall implementation of e-case. The scope of the e-case program is unclear and the implementation has been fragmented into several projects without common management and monitoring. Issues related to the development of the e-case for criminal proceedings are addressed in six project monitoring groups. These include 55 representatives from 16 institutions, but the participation of institutional representatives in these organizational structures does not imply a responsibility for the overall implementation of the e-case program, which would include overall supervision of the implementation of the e-case program, management-level decision-making for the implementation of the program, harmonization and implementation of common standards and conditions."
To get a clear picture of what is happening with the implementation of e-case, what difficulties and costs the implementers are facing, shortly before the turn of the year, Neatkarīgā met with then high officials of the MoJ - State Secretary Raivis Kronbergs (since January this year State Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture), Director of the Projects Department of the MoJ Agris Batalauskis (since January this year Director of the Patent Board) and Deputy Director of the Information Systems and Technologies Department of the Judicial Administration Jorens Liopa.
The officials stated that the first component of the first phase of the e-case implementation - the e-case portal, a shared solutions platform - had been successfully launched on December 1, 2021. This is the start of a shift in thinking and technology. The intention is to introduce electronic case flow in the pre-trial (starting from prosecution in the Public Prosecutor's Office), trial and enforcement processes, making information available in an electronic environment to all parties involved in the process.
The Judicial Administration, the Prosecutor's Office, the Prison Administration and the State Probation Service are involved in Phase 1 of the e-case implementation.
The above-mentioned institutions will use existing information systems to coordinate their activities: the Judicial Administration - the court information system TIS; the Prosecutor's Office - the prosecution information system ProIS; the Prison Administration - the prisoner information system IIS; the State Probation Service - the probation client accounting system PLUS.
The State Police, the Tax and Customs Police Board of the State Revenue Service, the Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau and other investigative bodies will be involved in the next stages of the e-case implementation. At the same time, a shared platform is being developed and improved, one of the components of which is a public services portal - the e-case website, which will enable persons to submit and receive e-case data, and unified calendars; including information on the availability of persons and resources, shared registers and classifiers shared in the e-case catalogue and necessary for the electronic environment of processes, as well as e-services, information and case files for persons involved in pre-trial (from prosecution), trial and enforcement processes -
parties, third parties involved in the proceedings, probation clients,
attorneys at law, forensic experts, economic operators, compulsory and public employers, volunteers, forensic experts, state and local authorities.
It is foreseen that the full transition to digital case files in court proceedings will take place gradually, by December 1, 2023.
Training for judges and court staff has now been transferred to the e-training platform and work on e-case development is ongoing.
Speaking about the achievements so far in the digitization of the judicial system, Kronbergs said: "I am proud of this effort. In 2014, digitization was supported by a European Union fund, which was very limited for Latvia. We were not afraid of the project - we realized that we had to digitize the processes of law enforcement institutions. We, therefore, agreed to the minimum amount of money to be received. We divided the project into phases and rounds and started implementing them. The European Union reminded us that this helping hand of financial resources would not be there all the time. The money from the digitization projects will be channeled into renewable resources. We started digitization in four institutions - the Public Prosecutor's Office, the Prison Administration, the Court Administration and the Probation Service."
As Batalauskis explained, the EU financial instrument initially covered only part of the necessary costs. This was the reason why the Ministry of the Interior's departments were not able to jump on the digitization bandwagon in time. The e-case requires that all law enforcement-related institutions not only exchange information in a single e-environment but also create documents, such as case files, in the e-environment, so that they are accessible to anyone in the institution who needs them for their work, with classification parameters that are recognizable in a single system. According to Batalauskis, "the Ministry of the Interior had started digitization, but that phase did not include the digitization of investigative bodies. It was found that the investigative bodies were not ready for the project at that moment. Moreover, under the programming of the financial instrument, the two ministries - Justice and Interior - could not jump into the same programming period at the same time. Today, we in the Ministry of Justice are the most digital ministry. It was agreed that we would start digitizing the Prosecutor's Office, the Probation Service, the Judicial Administration and the Prison Administration. It was expected that the Ministry of the Interior would be included in the second planning phase and would catch up with us, with the appropriate funding. The first phase is now over. It is now being taken forward by the Ministry of the Interior and will catch up with us at the end of 2023. This is not wrong planning (as the National Audit Office points out), but the only way to reach agreement between the institutions to secure funding for this digital reform and to get something like this done at all."
He also stressed that the first phase of the project required a legal definition of what an e-case is. Therefore, on November 25, 2021, Saeima approved in first reading the draft law on the e-case sharing solutions platform. It is designed to regulate the functioning of the e-case platform, to create a legal basis for the authorities to process personal data through the e-case platform, and for other parties involved in the proceedings to access case files through the e-case portal.
Speaking about the concerns expressed by judges about the preparedness of staff to work in the e-environment, Liopa pointed out that the anxiety about how work in the new digital world will work is justified, but the Judicial Administration is investing enormous efforts in training judicial staff and judges: "In total, there are more than 2000 court staff and judges in Latvia. The needs of each user are not and could not have been covered in the first phase of the project. The first phase focused on making the separate information systems interoperable, on ensuring that electronic documents are created and on their flow; that documents created by one system are recognized by another. That is why it is called phase one, and it is not an absolute digital environment, where we sit in a courtroom in front of touchscreens and go through a file, living in an absolute digital environment. Others say that what has been created now is just the provision of electronic filing. But this is the foundation for further development. It is important to change our thinking and to start creating documents into the system electronically, rather than creating them on paper and then scanning them. It is important that they are created electronically from the start. Then it is also easier to work with such documents. Judges say that not all courtrooms have digital equipment and trained staff. But this external funding ensured the development of the system, the software. 43% of courtrooms are equipped with digital systems. This is one of the issues that has been outside the funding of the digitization project. We have always stated, even in the minutes, with the project implementers, that additional funding is needed for these purposes and that the allocation of such funding is a political decision."
In response to Neatkarīgā's point that not only judges, but also ordinary users of the e-case portal face difficulties, as it is sometimes impossible to follow the progress of proceedings and the court calendar, which was previously possible on the tiesas.lv portal, Liopa explained: "It is a question of migration of information sets. Migrating digital information is not just about scanning cases and entering them on a certain server, for example, but also about matching them to all registers. It is a process that takes time and we have set it in motion. Data security is an important consideration in the process and we pay particular attention to this factor. In addition, it should be understood that not all criminal files are created in the Public Prosecutor's Office. They also come from the State Police, which has yet to digitize. It is not a simple transfer of documents between emails, but a system with new technology that makes it possible, without straining resources, for example, to access a necessary document in the Prison Administration or the Probation Service, also in the Public Prosecutor's Office.
The most challenging part will be the complete digitization of the prisoner's file, but in the future, the prisoner will be able to consult his case file and appeal it to the next instance while in prison, sitting in front of a computer in specially equipped rooms. The third stage, cross-border cooperation in electronic form, will be the final one. The e-evidence platform should be launched by summer 2022. This is a platform developed by the European Commission for communication between the EU Member States on criminal proceedings. Through this platform, officials from the EU Member States will be able to exchange investigative material and requests for legal assistance in an electronic environment."
Asked about the current cost of digitization, Batalauskis replied: "Around €5 million is being spent on the four projects, which are being carried out by different contractors. It is important that it is not just the development of information systems. It would be wrong to say that five million has been invested only in TIS and to now start to study what has come out of it. TIS is only part of a shared platform. Other interoperable information systems have also been developed for the Public Prosecutor's Office, the Prison Administration, the Probation Service. In addition, e-case sharing solution platforms have been developed, including one of its solutions - the e-case portal."