Development of e-justice in Ukraine: challenges and prospects

Abstract

The relevance of the study stems from the intensive digitalization of Ukraine's judicial system under martial law, European integration processes and the need to ensure continuous access to justice. The transformation of traditional judicial proceedings into a digital format raises the issue of the compliance of electronic procedures with constitutional guarantees, in particular the right to a fair trial, access to justice and procedural equality of the parties. Under such conditions, electronic justice appears not only as a technical tool of modernization, but also as an important component of the mechanism for the implementation of human rights and freedoms. The purpose of the article is to provide a comprehensive study of constitutional and legal principles, the evolution of regulatory support, judicial practice and key challenges and prospects for the development of electronic justice in Ukraine. The methodological basis of the study is general scientific and special legal methods, in particular, the dialectical method, the system-structural approach, formal-legal and comparative-legal methods. The study found that e-justice in Ukraine has progressed through stages, from conceptual formation to institutionalization, following the introduction of the Unified Judicial Information and Telecommunications System (UEITS). It is substantiated that regulatory and legal regulation is multi-level in nature and is in a state of dynamic development. Judicial practice plays a key role in the formation of electronic communication standards and filling gaps in legal regulation. It was found that the most significant legal challenges are ensuring proper notification of participants in the process, guaranteeing access to the courts, observing the principle of legal certainty, and striking a balance between electronic and traditional forms of judicial proceedings. Special attention is paid to the prospects for the use of artificial intelligence, which requires a clear definition of its application boundaries, taking into account the principle of the rule of law. The conclusions emphasize that further development of e-justice should be carried out by improving the functioning of the Unified Judicial Information and Telecommunications System (UEITS), unifying procedural norms and harmonizing national legislation with European standards.