New Technologies in International Law / Tymofeyeva, Crhák et al.

This paper participates in the success of DT projects in judicial systems as a reform tool undertaken by governments, local and international bodies working in the field supporting modernization for justice infrastructure in developing countries and countries under-development. It shows the effects of such digitization on the efficiency of courts’ output and access to justice. It also enhances the existing literature on DT in judicial services since it is rare. The paper mainly answers the following question, Does the digital transformation (DT) affect the access to justice? Theory and Literature Once following the literature, we found that the performance of judicial systems comprises various dimensions such as judicial independence, judicial accountability, Efficiency and judicial effectiveness. 126 In this research, we address yet another dimension of performance, namely Courts‘ output, accessibility to justice and how DT affects it. 127 The UN stressed that information and communication technologies (ICT) must be used in an innovative way to ensure the achievement of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals to promote the development of inclusive, effective and accountable institutions at all levels. 128 The transformation of the justice sector through (ICT) to digital justice results in an improvement of its efficiency, effectiveness, accountability, integrity, reliability and encouraging participation and citizen engagement. 129 Voigt refers to numerous factors that are likely to determine the supply of court output: The number of judges per capita. In addition, their education, age, experience and so on are likely to play a role. I) the incentives that judges are subject to, in particular payment schemes and career possibilities. ​II) the number and quality of staff. III) the available technology. Distinguishing between factors that are immutable and those that can be influenced by policy decisions is important for being able to predict the possible success of judicial reform programs. 130 The expected new technologies will have benefits for the judiciary and the government. Such technologies are mainly analytics, intelligent machines and security. 131 126 Voigt S and El Bialy N, ‘Identifying the determinants of aggregate judicial performance: taxpayers’ money well spent?’ (2016) 41 International Review of Law and Economics 283, p. 7. 127 Staats JL et al, ‘Measuring Judicial Performance in Latin America’ (2005) 47(4) Latin American Politics and Society 77. 128 UN, The Sustainable Development Goals Report (2018) . 129 Bertot J, Estevez E, Janowski T, ‘Universal and contextualized public services: Digital public service innovation framework’ (2016) 33 Government Information Quarterly 2, p. 13. 130 Voigt S, ‘Determinants of judicial efficiency: a survey’ (2016) 42(2) European Journal of Law and Economics 183, p. 11. 131 Stamford C, ‘Gartner’s 2016, Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies Identifies Three Key Trends That Organizations Must Track to Gain Competitive Advantage’ ( Gartner , 16 August 2016) .

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