CMS Expert Guide to Digital Litigation in Croatia

Significant steps in the digitalisation of the Croatian civil justice system began in 2019 with the amendments to the Croatian Civil Proceedings Act (CPA). Since then, there have been additional amendments, which have furthered digitalisation.

The CPA introduced an information system for communication with the courts named e-Communication (e-Komunikacija).

The e-Communication system serves as a delivery point, meaning that court decisions, minutes from hearings and motions of parties are filed and delivered via that system.

Additionally, the parties of proceedings can at any time review the whole case file and download documents from the case file as needed.

The CPA also envisages that court hearings will be audio recorded (exceptions will apply) and that the audio recording will be available via the e-Communication system.

The option of holding hearings or taking evidence remotely by use of appropriate audiovisual devices and technical platforms was also introduced.

Besides e-Communication, there are other systems and platforms that provide legal services in digitalised form. An example is the e-Case website (e-predmet), which provides public access to basic data on court cases. This data includes the list of actions in the proceedings (date, short description and initials of the subject that undertook the action), dates of held and scheduled hearings, initials of the parties, etc. The information needed to search through the e-Case is the name of the court where the proceeding is conducted and the reference number of the case.

There is also the e-Filing system (e-Spis), which is an integrated court case management system used by courts (i.e. municipal, commercial, county, administrative, the Supreme Court of Croatia, etc.).

Furthermore, the website e-BulletinBoard (e-Oglasna ploča sudova) is a free public service that enables the viewing of electronic bulletin boards of courts and other competent bodies. Through the central search engine, it is possible to search for published decisions and other documents of municipal, county, commercial and administrative courts, the Financial Agency in enforcement proceedings, and notaries public.

The enforcement proceedings have also been digitalised in recent years. Through the system of e-Enforcement (e-Ovrhe) creditors can file enforcement requests to notaries public. It should be noted that this does not cover all enforcement, but just enforcement initiated based on invoices, excerpts from business books and other documents listed in the Croatian Enforcement Act. After the creditor obtains an enforcement decision, there is the option of filing (via the e-Enforcement system) a request for enforcement over the debtor’s bank accounts (seizure of funds from the debtor’s bank accounts) to the Croatian Financial Agency.

The majority of digital or technical measures available in litigation are digital platforms (as described above, websites for reviewing basic information of court cases, review of published court decisions and similar) and e-filing of claims/documents (e-Communication and e-Enforcement).

Videoconferencing (i.e. holding hearings and taking of evidence remotely by use of appropriate audiovisual devices and technical platforms) is expected to be more frequent. At the beginning of 2023, the By-law on Holding Hearings Remotely came into force. It prescribes the manner by which hearings can be held and evidence can be taken remotely. As a result, the courts are expected to begin using these options this year.

The e-Enforcement system allows for document automation because the user inserts the mandatory information (e.g. information re enforcement creditor and debtor, amount and basis of claim, etc.) and then the system generates an enforcement request that the party initiating the proceedings needs to sign by a qualified electronic signature and file electronically via the same system.

The courts use the available tools regularly.

Audio recordings of hearings are still not used. This is because the Minister of Justice and Public Administration must determine (and adopt a decision) that the court has met the technical conditions for such recordings. Only then will the courts start the practice of recording hearings. It should be noted that the option to record hearing has existed in the Croatian system, but recording was optional. Only recently has it been mandatory.

The use of e-Communication is mandatory for state bodies, State attorney’s office, lawyers, notary publics, legal persons, natural persons who conduct a registered business activity (sole proprietors, doctors, etc.) in respect to proceedings connected to such business activity, etc. They are always obligated to file motions signed by a qualified electronic signature in electronic form via the e-Communication system. Not abiding by this obligation will ultimately (after expiration of the deadline given by the court to file the motion via this system) result in the motion being considered withdrawn.

The use of the e-Communication is optional for other participants of proceedings (e.g. natural persons who are not represented by an attorney). In such cases, the usual primary means of delivery is mail. For the documents to be delivered through e-Communication, the party needs to consent to such delivery. However, if the party filed a motion to the court through the electronic system, it will be considered that the party has agreed for the delivery to be done electronically unless the party states otherwise.

When a document is sent via the e-Communication system, it is sent to the e-Communication mailbox of the recipient and the recipient is notified by e-mail that a document was delivered to its e-Communication mailbox. The recipient then has 15 days to confirm receipt of the document. If the recipient does not do so, the document will be considered delivered when the 15th day lapses. 
The e-Case website (e-predmet) is an informative public access website. Thus, it is not mandatory to use it.

The courts use the e-Filing system (e-Spis) as their internal case management system. It is not used by the parties and their counsels.

The e-BulletinBoard (e-Oglasna ploča sudova) is a mandatory means of delivery in some cases. For example, when the party of the proceedings was properly notified regarding the hearing on which the court will announce the (first instance) judgment, but did not attend the hearing, the judgment is delivered by its publication on the e-BulletinBoard.

Additionally, filing an enforcement request in enforcement conducted before a notary public must be done via the e-Enforcement (e-Ovrhe) system. The exception is that a natural person (without counsel) may file the enforcement proposal to the Croatian Financial Agency, which will then file the request electronically via the e-Enforcement (e-Ovrhe) system.

Croatia does not have a fully digitalised litigation process in place. As described above, some digital features were only recently introduced. Thus, it remains to be seen to what extent such features will be used (e.g. holding hearings remotely). 

The rules regulating the use of technology in litigation are essentially limited to the legislation that regulates the above-described digital measures (e.g. the CPA, By-law on Electronic Communication, By-law on Holding Hearings Remotely, etc.). Currently, these are not up for legislative debate.

In order to foster digitalisation, the Independent Sector for Digitalisation of Justice and Public Administration was established within the Ministry of Justice and Administration. The subject Sector performs tasks related to the digital transformation of the judiciary (together with judicial and criminal bodies) and public administration, and participates in initiatives and partnerships concerning the digital transformation of the judiciary and public administration with the aim of improving the digitalisation of the justice system as a whole, and consequentially, digitalisation in litigation.

The Action Plan for Implementation of National Plan for Development of the Judicial System for the Period from 2022 to 2024 shows that by the first quarter of 2026 an e-Courtroom system should be implemented. Judges should use E-Courtroom to manage the entire proceedings via a central tool. For example, an audio recording tool would record the statements of the participants.

The Action Plan also envisages new applications, such as virtual assistants, as support in communicating with courts.

There are currently no rules that apply to the use of AI in litigation.

According to the National Plan for Development of the Judicial System for the Period from 2022 to 2027, the use of AI tools is currently limited. AI tools are used, for example, in converting audio to text.

Prevention of unwanted access/ IT-security breaches is ensured by the manner in which a person can access the e-Communication system. The system can be accessed by using the credentials of the National Identification and Authentication System, which are of a significant or high security level. The credential is basically proof of (electronic) identity.

After accessing the e-Communication system, one can only access case files for which the court has approved access to that individual. For example, lawyers can only access files for which they have delivered a PoA to the court and natural persons can only access files in which they are a party, etc.
The above is applicable to the e-Enforcement system as well, while the e-Filing system has a similar approach (access by username and password given by the system administrator).

In most of the applicable regulations, the Ministry is listed as the responsible entity for operation and safety of the system.

As for rules regulating the use of data, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is applicable.

No, currently the use of digital tools in litigation has not led to new risks for business. 

There is a centralised digital platform (one-stop-shop) for electronic communication with the Land Registry Departments of courts and Cadastre, which has two components. One is a public application accessible to all users, regardless of the registration, which allows search and review of basic land registry and cadastral data. The other is for registered users and enables reviews of data, filing applications for obtaining public deeds, participation in land registry and cadastral proceedings as well as receiving officially composed documents.

The National Plan for Development of the Judicial System for the Period from 2022 to 2027 states that AI should be relied upon more in the future. For example, a chatbot should be implemented as user support in respect to systems used by courts and state and local self-government bodies.
Public statements of the Ministry suggest that the courts are using AI. For example, the Ministry plans to make all judgments publicly available before 2027 and use AI tools to anonymise the judgments prior to publication.