On 3 August 2017 the Plenum of the Supreme Judicial Council adopted a draft Ordinance No. 6 on the Procedure for Carrying out Procedural Acts and Authentication Statements in Electronic Form which is coordinated with the Director of the State e-Government Agency and the Minister of Justice. The draft ordinance was developed by a working group established by a decision of the Plenum, Protocol No. 27 / 07.07.2016, on the grounds of Art. 360e of the Judiciary Act. Alexandra Tzvetkova, Director of the LIBRe Foundation is a key member of the working group.
The Ordinance sets the framework for e-Justice development in the country.
It places requirements on the judicial authorities’ websites; technical requirements towards proceedings and authentication statements in electronic form and the ways of implementing them; the formats and technical requirements towards the electronic documents sent to and by the judiciary authorities, as well as the ways in which they are to be submitted by citizens and organizations; the formats of scanned documents and other electronic evidence.
The Ordinance regulates the methods of electronic payment of stamp duties, expenses and other obligations to judicial authorities; the technical requirements towards the user, machine and other interfaces of the information systems used by the judicial authorities; the e-mail addresses to which electronic statements could be sent by the judicial authorities, depending on the specified ways of conducting procedural acts and authentication statements; interoperability and information security requirements, including interface requirements, exchange standards, formats of transmitted electronic documents, and the mode of exchange between judicial authorities.
The Ordinance includes rules on interoperability and the secure exchange of electronic documents with public bodies, public service providers, and administrative authorities under the e-Government Act.
[Source: Supreme Judicial Council]
Ordinance No. 6 on the Procedure for Carrying out Procedural Acts and Authentication Statements in Electronic Form was promulgated in State Gazette No. 67 from 18.08.2017.
The field of e-Justice is central in LIBRe Foundation’s applied research. You could get introduced with the publication sequence presenting the e-Justice development in Bulgaria which is published on LIBRe Stories online platform: e-Justice is in Active Mode Again - 7 Years Later, е-Justice in Legislative Norms, and e-Justice in Deadlines – written by Alexandra Tsvetkova.