Significant acceleration in the administration of justice, reduction of bureaucracy, great savings in man-hours and resources, with a positive environmental footprint, brings the new digital judicial file presented to Prime Minister Kyriacos Mitsotakis at a law firm in Athens. Mitsotakis had the opportunity to see how the innovative new system, which changes everyday life and facilitates the work of judges, court officials, lawyers, and citizens, is being implemented in practice.

The Prime Minister was briefed by the Minister of Justice Giorgos Floridis, the Minister of Digital Governance Dimitris Papastergio,u and Deputy Minister of Justice Ioannis Bougas for the design and operation of the digital court file, in the context of the upgrade and expansion of the Integrated Judicial Case Management System for Civil and Criminal Justice, which significantly accelerates the justice process and enhances transparency.

The process will be accelerated, the efficiency of the judicial process will be improved, and the speed of justice will be enhanced.

The digital court file electronically centralizes a case file, giving judicial officers and lawyers instant access to all documents with a single click, instead of the tens of man-hours and thousands of photocopied pages that were previously required for each court action. Documents stored in the electronic file bear proof of filing, and their printouts are counted as official and verifiable copies.

The new system will include all cases in the regular civil justice process, i.e., 60% of the cases in the trial court, from April 1, and will be extended to all cases until 2027.

Thanks to these innovations, the administration of justice is facilitated and thus substantially accelerated, to the benefit of citizens.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis had the opportunity to watch lawyer Vassilis Apostolidis process from the computer in his office, in just 10 minutes, the filing of a lawsuit for a case in the Land Registry, which until now, as the lawyer said, required at least two working days, as it required the movement of himself and his associates to the relevant services for the required documents, as well as the printing of hundreds of pages.

After the presentation, the Prime Minister said: “I congratulate the Ministry of Justice, with the great support of the Ministry on digital issues and the Minister, Mr Papastergiou, for this excellent initiative.

We often talk about how Justice will move into the digital age and into the 21st century. And here I think that there is indeed a leap forward, which makes it easier for all those involved, lawyers, judges, and court officials.

We are saving time, we are reducing bureaucracy, we are promoting transparency, and I think it is the best proof of how, Minister, we can also use European resources for important projects that allow us to move justice into a completely new era.

So, many congratulations to those who worked to make this project a reality, and obviously, we hope that all the timelines will be met so that the digital docket will cover the whole range of court cases, which is expected to be done by 2027.”

Justice Minister George Florides noted for his part: “I, Mr. President, would first of all like to thank you, because all these things, which constitute breakthroughs, could not have been made without your support and constant encouragement that we need to make major changes. Everything that has been done here has been pending for about a century, not four years. They have been pending for exactly a century.

And it’s very, very important to say – and let the world hear this – that this method that we’re using here right now doesn’t exist anywhere in the world. Let the Greek citizens understand that Greece is not just following, but leading the world.

This will make it much easier for lawyers, judges, court officials, and, of course, it is a great benefit for the Greek people, because everything that we do for the citizens is for them, not for us.”

Dimitris Papastergiou, Minister of Digital Governance, noted: “It is very important that now the lawyer enters a point, President, he does not have to enter various platforms. And now, judges and lawyers alike, in one place, in one repository, they have the whole history of the trial, all the relevant documents of the trial, and also all the information they want to have in relation to when the decision will come out.

So, from one point, in the government systems that are stored and now have followed the cloud flow to have everything secure, and without having to move around anymore, they can do their job without the hassle that they have had to date.”

Lawyer Vassilis Apostolidis said: “This process certainly unties the hands of all colleagues, it facilitates procedures, speed, time saving, essentially resource saving, and certainly the environmental footprint. In any case, we should thank the Ministry for this pragmatic procedure. We will honour it, and we expect it to be passed on to the other procedures to facilitate all our daily lives in our industry. Thank you very much.”