As part of JCI Nicosia’s series of teleconferences, I had the pleasure of joining the Deputy Minister to the President of Cyprus for Research, Innovation & Digital Policy, Mr Kyriacos Kokkinos, for a discussion on all things technology, innovation, digitalisation and working culture in Cyprus. The discussion also touched on the topic of e-justice, the need for which is now more pressing than ever.
Mr Kokkinos characteristically stated that e-justice is a ‘child of the pandemic’, with a history of 15 years in the making.
The last tender for the project was announced in 2017 and evaluation of the tenders submitted will take another year to complete. “This shows our inefficiency in being fast in the process,” he added.
Thus, it was decided to allow the project to run while, at the same time, implementing certain parts of this project, i.e., the electronic filing of first-instance cases, appeals, payments and even some hearings via teleconferences. He added that this is a highly complicated project but one which is expected to have high value and high impact.
Commentary
The importance and value of e-justice cannot possibly be understated. With a simple first instance civil case taking up to 10 years to complete, Cyprus court system is in deer need of innovation.
The potential benefits, in my opinion, would extend far beyond the obvious, of making dispute resolution faster and easier and of allowing for greater access to justice. E-justice could also help curb the drain of legal talent from the profession and from Cyprus with young individuals leaving the profession and the country the moment they step foot in a Cyprus court.
E-justice would also give even greater practical value and significance to contractual obligations and (hopefully) help eliminate the culture of strategic defaults, with individuals and companies ‘hiding’ behind the inefficiencies of our court system to avoid or delay performance of their contractual obligations.
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