One of the means to increase courts’ efficiency and to minimize the difficulties created by COVID-19 pandemic is to use electronic communication and exchange of document between lawyers and courts. At the request of Tirana District Court a coordination meeting was organised today with the participation of Tirana Court administration, High Judicial Council and School of Magistrates to discuss concrete steps and tools for enabling electronic communication and exchange of documents.

The ​President of the Court of Grand Instance, Strasbourg Mr Thierry Ghera shared the France’s experience with the dematerialisation in courts and exchanged views with the participants on potential steps forward in the Albanian context.

The activity is part of a wider assistance provided under the European Union/Council of Europe joined action “Strengthening the Quality and Efficiency of Justice in Albania” (SEJ III) to the High Judicial Council, Courts, and Bar Association in addressing the legal and technical IT issues in piloting a dematerialization process in the courts, which will be essential to increase the efficiency of the justice system. It is a follow up to the study visit organized in Strasbourg in 2019 with representatives of the new High Judicial Council, Courts and the School of Magistrates, to observe good practices in the field of case flow management and court administration. All the representatives from the beneficiaries institutions were interested to hear more on the European best practices for enabling electronic communication and exchange of documents, and considered the meeting very useful and very suitable timing.

This activity was organised in the framework of the SEJ III Action - “Strengthening the Efficiency and Quality of the justice system in Albania”, which is part of the programme "Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey 2019-2022", co-funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe and implemented by the Council of Europe.