ELECTRONIC DOCUMENTS MANAGEMENT IN THE CIVIL PROCESS OF UKRAINE

Abstract

According to the Provisional Regulations for Electronic Document Exchange between the Court and the Parties to the Trial No. 105 approved by the SJA of Ukraine on 07.09.2012, the procedure for the documents’ exchange between the court and parties to the trial can be used under the following conditions: 1. A participant of civil proceedings signed up for document electronic exchange between the court and the parties to the trial (the software package being a part of the judiciary web portal, providing for filing electronic documents to the court and sending electronic documents by the court to the parties to the trial) on the official website of the judiciary of Ukraine. 2. A participant of civil proceedings filed an application on obtaining judicial documents in electronic form in the particular case to the court, which was printed from the official web portal of the judiciary of Ukraine.To fully use the system of documents exchange between the court and the parties to civil proceedings a user (a participant of the civil proceedings) should have a digital signature, which meets the requirements of the Law of Ukraine «On Electronic Digital Signature » dated 22.05.2003. The advantages of the document electronic exchange between the court and parties to the trial include the following: – Saving money.Thus, document electronic exchange will allow saving about UAH 27 mln. annually if to consider only commercial courts. – Saving time.In addition to significant reduction (by several times) of the time spent for summons’ delivery, the introduction of document electronic exchange will save time spent by court staff for filling the summons in, enveloping the letters, printing and sending the procedural documents. – Proper acknowledgment of receipt of the summons or procedural document by a party to the trial.Confirming the receipt of summons or other document by the party to the trial is known to be one of the largest problems in informing the participants of the civil proceedings.The use of document electronic exchange will solve it, since the notification receipt is registered automatically by the court document flow system.What is more, any outside influence on the system or other subjective factors that prevent delivery of notifications to the recipient are actually excluded. For efficient implementation of new forms for informing on the date, time and place of the court session, it seems necessary to amend the Code of Civil Procedure of Ukraine, namely to complement it by Article 76-1 «Order of notifying persons using other means of communication » as follows: « The procedure for notification of persons involved in the case as well as witnesses, experts, specialists, and translators using other means of communication shall be established by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine» .