The Croatian Ministry of Justice has initiated, through a series of projects, a comprehensive informatisation programme whose aim is to achieve more efficient work of the justice system.

 

In that manner, development and implementation of the Unique information system for management of court cases (eFile) in Croatian courts has continued in 2009.

 

The set up of the eFile system production is also planned during 2009 in the Municipal court in Pula, Commercial court in Zagreb and Split, Municipal criminal court in Zagreb, Municipal civil court in Zagreb. The expansion of systems to 60 municipal, county and commercial courts will take place after this set-up, within PHARE 2006 project financed by the European Commission.

 

The set up of pilot project in four state attorney's offices (Zlatar, Karlovac, Pula, and Zagreb) is also planned. The final objective is to implement eFile into the entire judicial system, establish connection with all justice programmes (such as land registry, court practice, numerous records management systems) and related programmes of other state government authorities.

 

Already initiated activities in the areas of set-up of Common information system of property cadastre and land registries (BZP) will also continue in 2009.The goal of this project, which started in 2007, is to build and set up information system which will encompass all data from the existing official cadastral and land registry records and to enable electronic cooperation between cadastral and land registry offices and clients. Drafting of the protocol for data migration, filling of database, creation and testing of application modules and testing conducted at pilot locations are also planned in 2009.

 

Presented in June 2007, when the project was successfully released into operation with real cases at the Municipal court in Pula and Commercial court in Split. The objective of eFILE projects is to improve the capability of monitoring cases from statements initiating the proceedings to case closures, capability of managing actions in a case and court management.

 

In November 2005, Browser of cadastral data, providing insight into the central database of all cadastral data of the Republic of Croatia through the Internet (www.katastar.hr) was established within eCadastre project. The database of cadastral data contains over 16 million entered land plots which are completely available using this Browser.

 

In May 2005, on-line service of digital land registry with access to databases of approximately 50 courts (e-excerpt, pravosudje.hr) was opened. All of 87 courts entering digital data opened this digital land registry by the end of 2005, and all municipal court were equipped for entering digital land registry data.

 

The Supreme court of the Republic of Croatia has been publishing anonymous text of court sentences on the Internet since December 2003. This creates better transparency of courts work and increases their efficiency (sudskapraksa.vsrh.hr). The database provides insight into the court practice published in bulletins of the Supreme court of the Republic of Croatia since 1993. Apart from decisions of the Supreme court, a selection of decisions of county courts and High Commercial court of the Republic of Croatia have also been published.

 

The Ministry of Justice realised this project in 2006 with the aim to provide insight into the central database of bulletin boards of municipal, county, and commercial courts of the Republic of Croatia. By using the central browser it is possible to browse through bulletins of municipal, county and commercial courts of the Republic of Croatia. All courts bulletins are published immediately upon the publishing date and are withdrawn automatically upon their expiry.

 

Insight into the court register through the Internet was realised as early as 1995. A simple registration of companies is one of important activities of the Ministry of Justice in its attempt to create favourable entrepreneur environment in Croatia. Amendments to the Court Register Act, investments into the court register information system of commercial courts, automatisation of administrative-accounting operations of the judiciary, as well as criminal and offence records, have facilitated the simplification of procedures for incorporation of companies and simple access to Court register data.

 

Judges and other judicial officers are provided with access to legal databases and register by introduction and development of the Ministry of Justice e-Portal (www.pravosudje.hr), whereas citizens are provided with fast access to information on activities related to the justice reform and on the judiciary system functioning.

 

In May 2005, the Ministry of Justice has undertook the project www.sudacka-mreza.hr as an online service for access to legal information intended for legal officers, judges, the Faculty of Law students, citizens, court experts, court interpreters and foreign investors.