User:Colonia2012/E-CODEX

e-CODEX

“e-Justice Communication via Online Data EXchange” (e-CODEX) is a Large Scale Project partially funded by the European Commission. The aim of the e-CODEX project is to facilitate cross-border online electronic communication in the field of justice.

"Justice is not only of national importance, it is a cross-border personal right." - The EU-commission

Due to high mobility and European integration, procedures containing cross-border effects are increasing. These procedures require cooperation between different national judicial systems. The e-CODEX project aims to improve the cross-border access of citizens and businesses to legal means in Europe as well as to improve the interoperability between legal authorities within the EU. Indeed, the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) can make judicial procedures more transparent, efficient and economic. The goal is to improve citizens, companies, administrations, and legal practitioners access to justice. The e-CODEX effort is therefore not only to smoothen access to information but also to gain the ability to process cross-border cases efficiently through electronic means.

e-CODEX at a glance:
Project:              e-Justice Communication via Online Data eXchange (e-CODEX)

Project Coordinator:  Ministry of Justice North Rhine Westphalia

Participants:         Austria, Belgium, Czech republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, hungary, Italy, Malta, The Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Turkey, CCBE and CNUE

Duration:             3 years (2011-2013)

Total cost:           Total cost: €14.04m - EU contribution: €7.02m

Programme:            ICT Policy Support Programme under the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP)

Project reference:    270968

The project is currently running.

Project structure:
The project is structured into seven different work packages.



WP1 - Project administration
The goal of WP1 – although limited in time to the duration of the project – is to set up a collaborative and constructive environment for the project. Although this role is more a managerial, legal and administrative one, it plays an important role in developing team spirit and a sense of belonging to a pan-EU endeavour that will significantly contribute to the future of the Europe.

WP2 - Communication
The long term vision of WP2 is to set up a community of practice in the field of e-Justice by bringing a variety of stakeholders together. Two different types of communication will be encouraged: push information in terms of raising awareness around the project’s objectives, milestones and results; and pull information in terms of obtaining information and advice from actors outside the consortium: other Member States, the EC, the Council, Judicial actors, standardisation bodies, industry, (end) users, other projects.

WP3 - Piloting
The different building blocks developed in the technical work packages of the project need to be sufficiently generic to be applied to a variety of use cases in countries with different national systems. To validate and demonstrate this, the project will select a number of cross-border use cases for which the building blocks will be deployed and tested in real live cases. e-CODEX will demonstrate and measure how e-Justice services can contribute to achieving the goals of the e-Justice Action Plan. This will be done through the validation of the specifications, modules and systems developed – it is the reality check rolled out to several business / service cases and countries across Europe.

WP4 - e-Signature and e-Identity
Electronic identities, electronic signatures and electronic mandates all exist in some form or other in the different Member States of the EU. Recognizing these identities and being able to use them, especially in cross-border cases, is by no means a trivial matter. Work Package 4 will work on finding solutions that can be used by all participating partners.

WP5 - e-Delivery e-Payment
In order to be able to conduct electronic procedures across borders, transportation of documents and information from the various actors in judicial processes is needed. Such transportation, also sometimes referred to as e-Delivery or e-Filing, needs to be able to deal with a diversity of transport solutions used in the different countries involved, both from the perspective of the judicial actors involved as well as the end users. Work Package 5 is in charge of developing a common interoperability solution for e-Delivery for cross-border e-Justice.

WP6 - Documents and Semantics
Work Package 6 is in charge of creating an e-Document standard for interoperability for extracting and interpreting document contents and thus enabling interoperable and (partially) automated processing. e-Documents deal with the container, contents and semantics of the documents and metadata involved in order to enable interoperability and simplify cross-border processing between citizens, administrations and businesses throughout Europe.

WP7 - Architecture
WP 7 supports the other work packages across the board. Its results will serve as reusable basis for the select pilot applications and may be used as guidelines for future applications beyond the pilot’s scope. By providing an architectural framework which can be extended, the implementation of other, new e-Justice applications will become easier. The architecture of this pilot should become a model for future service developments.

Pilots:
The goal of e-CODEX, as an EU co-funded project, is to improve the cross-border access of citizens and businesses to legal means in Europe as well as to improve the interoperability between legal authorities within the EU. This has procedural, organizational and technical consequences. At the technical level, the goal of the e-CODEX project is to establish a European interoperability layer for e-Justice communication.

The proof of the work conducted with e-CODEX will be demonstrated during it’s piloting phase. A piloting phase is to be understood as a period during which the solutions will be run in a real life environment, for citizens, business and legal professionals to use. For the purpose of the pilots, the five procedures below have been identified as use cases.

EPO
The swift and efficient recovery of outstanding debts is of paramount importance for citizens and companies in the EU, as late payments constitute a major reason for insolvency threatening the survival of small, medium-sized and even large businesses and resulting in numerous job losses. The EU has taken the initiative to simplify and speed up the recovery of uncontested monetary claims in cross-border cases by creating a harmonized European order for payment procedure.

Small Claims
The small claims procedure is based on European regulation. It seeks to improve and simplify procedures in civil and commercial matters where the value of the claim does not exceed 2 000 € excluding interest, expenses and disbursements. The Small Claims Procedure operates on the basis of standard forms. It is a written procedure unless an oral hearing is considered necessary by the court. This pilot will enable European Union citizens and companies to process civil claims and deliver related documents online.

EAW
The aim of the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) is to avoid the exploitation of open borders within the European Union to evade justice. It requires each national executing judicial authority to recognise requests for the surrender of a person made by the judicial authority of another Member State (the issuing judicial authority). It is to be used when a Member State considers it necessary to have a person present on its territory in order to prosecute that person or to put them in upon that person. In e-CODEX, the EAW pilot will focus on the electronic transmission of the arrest warrant and exchanges between the issuing and the executing authority.

Secure cross-border exchange of sensitive data
Secure cross-border exchange of sensitive data is based on a desire to increase the cross-border communication between judicial authorities particularly in combating terrorism and cross-border crime. This pilot will help the relevant parties to deal with the cases in which any kind of cross-border judicial cooperation among European Member States is needed by means of the electronic exchange of sensitive data.