The High Council of Justice approved an advisory opinion, which generally supported the draft law № 7574-д on the mandatory registration and use of electronic cabinets in the Unified Judicial Information and Telecommunication System by representatives of legal professions, legal entities and individuals – entrepreneurs.
As follows from the explanatory note, the implementation of the draft law will ensure the gradual introduction of electronic communications with the court, and will also contribute to the mandatory registration and use of electronic cabinets in the UJITS for a separate category of participants in the process in the electronic cabinet will enable the courts to communicate and summon the relevant participants in electronic form, saving money (there are no costs for paper, stamps, stationery), and also significantly saves time (summoning in electronic form, in contrast to making a summon by mail, takes much less time).
To this end, it is proposed to make the following amendments to the Code of Economic Procedure of Ukraine, the Code of Administrative Procedure of Ukraine and the Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine:
1) replace the term “official e-mail address in the UJITS” with the term “electronic cabinet in the UJITS”, which will contribute to the correct understanding of this tool by the participants of the court proceedings;
2) impose the obligation to register an electronic cabinet in the UJITS to all legal entities and individuals – entrepreneurs;
3) provide that in event of applying to the court of a person who is obliged to register an electronic cabinet, but has not fulfilled his/her duty, his/her documents remain motionless in the court or are returned without consideration, depending on the type of procedural document;
4) establish for all statements on the merits of the case, other procedural statements, petitions such a mandatory requisite as indicating in the text information about the presence or absence of an electronic cabinet;
5) provide the party with the opportunity to send documents to other participants in the case through the UJITS if they have an electronic cabinet.
The final provisions of the draft law propose to establish that lawyers, notaries, private bailiffs, trustees in bankruptcy, judicial experts, state bodies, local government and other legal entities shall register electronic cabinets in the Unified Judicial Information and Telecommunication System or its separate subsystem (modules) ensures the exchange of procedural documents within thirty days from the date of publication of this Law. Provide that individuals – entrepreneurs shall register electronic cabinets in the UJITS within four months from the date of entry into force of this Law.
The High Council of Justice in general supports this legislative initiative as one aimed at increasing the efficiency of court cases consideration at the same time made comments and suggestions that are mandatory for consideration.
The HCJ warned that rejection of the concept of “official e-mail address” and the related concept of “e-mail address” and replacing them with the concept of “electronic cabinet” under the conditions of martial law and in the event of possible power outages, technical failures in the operation of the “Electronic Court” subsystem may complicate the timely sending or receipt by the court/participants of the process of procedural documents during the practical implementation of the proposed amendments to the legislation. Also, the matter of the compliance of technical equipment and software of the courts with their full adaptability to electronic justice remains unresolved.
However, the Council supports the proposed changes to the legislation in this part, taking into account the increased terms of implementation of the measures provided for in the final wording of the draft law, as well as a three-month postponement from the date of termination or cancellation of martial law for individuals – entrepreneurs of the obligation to register an electronic cabinet in the UJITS.
The HCJ also drew attention to the possible unequal legal regulation in certain legal relations in the procedural codes in the event that draft law No. 7574-д is adopted. In particular, the current wording of paragraph seven of part one of Article 35 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine in terms of the list of persons obliged to register official electronic addresses in the UJITS and/or its individual subsystems (modules), does not correspond to similar articles of the Code of Administrative Procedure of Ukraine, the Code of Civil Procedure of Ukraine and the Code of Economic Procedure of Ukraine.
To resolve this issue, it was aimed the draft law No. 8219 “On making amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine to ensure the phased implementation of the Unified Judicial Information and Telecommunication System” that by paragraph seven of part one of Article 35 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine expands the list of persons obliged to register official electronic addresses in the UJITS.
Therefore, in order to avoid contradictions in the legal regulation of this issue, the changes provided for in draft law No. 8219 should be coordinated with the provisions of relevant articles of the CAP of Ukraine, CPC of Ukraine and CEP of Ukraine (as amended by draft law No. 7574-д in the event of its adoption by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (the HCJ approved advisory opinion No. 8219).
The HCJ also believes that provisions of procedural codes in the new version regarding the application of the concept of “electronic signature” should be brought into line with the terminology of the Law of Ukraine “On Electronic Trust Services”.
In order to ensure terminological unity the HCJ pointed out that it expedient to unify the used in the draft law No. 7574-д concepts of “electronic signature”, “own electronic signature equated to a handwritten electronic signature”, “qualified electronic signature or other means of electronic identification that make it possible to uniquely identify a person.”