Right to a modern trial: A new principle on the horizon of the digital age

Abstract

The study presents the most important common features of current judicial systems and argues that the courts are finding it more difficult to fulfil their role in the 21st century in a changing social and economic context. The development of information technology is also challenging the courts, which can only respond adequately by bringing modern technology into the courts themselves, allowing clients to access the courts online, outside office hours, and to receive meaningful, fast and efficient assistance in resolving their disputes. The study proposes that, in addition to the right to a fair trial, the right to a modern trial should be a requirement for the state to ensure that these requirements are met. These two principles, complementing each other, would help to ensure access to justice for clients in the 21st century. The adoption and implementation of this new principle will require a number of legal and technological changes. Yet it is not their implementation that seems the most difficult, but a change in the general legal thinking about the functioning of the courts, according to which the court is primarily a physical place where disputes are settled, and its role is not to provide a wide range of services, but only to deliver judgments.