The member of the High Council of Justice Inna Plakhtii and the representative of the State enterprise “Judicial services center” Oleksandra Tsariova presented to experts of the Council of Europe Project “Support for judicial institutions and processes to strengthen access to justice in Ukraine” and the European Commission for the efficiency of justice (CEPEJ) a national platform for holding court hearings in the videoconference mode.
The presentation was held within the activity of the working group on developing the practical guide on remote court hearings and aimed at enlightening of principles of work and algorithm of actions of participants of court hearings, court and the State Judicial Administration of Ukraine during application the videoconference system in court hearings.
An experience using the available videoconference system will give experts on preparation of the guidelines the possibility to receive information on what currently Ukrainian courts work with and use it for the development of practical guidelines on remote court hearings, considering Ukrainian realities and legislative norms.
The videoconference system is a subsystem of the Integrated Judicial Information and Telecommunication System that provides the possibility for participants of court proceedings to participate in court hearings remotely.
During the presentation, it was noted that during September 2022, using the IJITS more than 32 000 court hearings were held, 15 510 out of them – with the participation of persons who were at a distance from the court, at the same time, about 4,000 conferences were held with detention centers and penitentiary institutions. Currently, the system complies with all information protection regulations and, unlike other systems, records court proceedings.
At the same time, the system needs to improve the processes that already exist. This will be possible thanks to cooperation within the framework of expert assistance for the purpose of preparing a guidance for Ukrainian lawyers.
It should be reminded that the working group on developing the practical guide on remote court hearings was formed within the framework of the activity of the Council of Europe Project “Support for judicial institutions and processes to strengthen access to justice in Ukraine” in cooperation with the European Commission for the efficiency of justice (CEPEJ).
International and national experts participated in the event: law professor and attorney, co-author of the CEPEJ Guidelines on videoconferencing in judicial proceedings (Poland) Marek Swierczynski, lecturer, researcher of the Faculty of Law of the Lyon Catholic University (France), co-author of the CEPEJ Guidelines on videoconferencing in judicial proceedings (France) Alexandre Palanco, ІТ manager, Director of the Technology Coordination Office of the General Directorate for IT Systems of the Ministry of Justice (2016–2020) (Italy) Giulio Borsari, project coordinator, cooperation department CEPEJ Jovana Matic, Acting Chairman of the High Council of Justice Vitalii Salikhov, Acting Director of the State enterprise “Judicial services center” Andrii Sliusarenko.