The second visit of the project took place in Athens on 15 & 16 November 2023. The first day the team was received at the Ministry of Justice, by Minister’s office staff and top officials of the Ministry, where a group of subject matter national experts exchanged information with the SimpliVi team. The next day, the team visited the Athens Court of first instance, where they had the opportunity to see the current pilot videoconferencing facilities set up and operation in a court room reserved for the meeting.
Greece is a country where the digital transformation of the Judicial system has been accelerating dynamically with the judicial sector being one of the top priorities of the current administration and its transformation being well routed in the Digital Transformation Bible 2020-2025. It is also a country with several islands and inland remote areas where videoconferencing would increase system efficiencies and safety. Although the need and opportunity has long been identified, systematic implementation and deployment has been initiated only in recent years.
Video conferencing is established as one of the 28 implementation priorities of digital transformation of Justice and an ambitious deployment project is in progress, alongside enabling legislation brought to parliament by the MoJ. The videoconferencing project is building on the scarce videoconferencing experiences of previous years - primarily in criminal cases and exceptional conditions - towards a more routine use of videoconferencing in the judiciary - courts, public prosecutors offices and prisons, starting with 8 different use-cases in criminal, civil and administrative matters. The end goal is to reduce the costs for travelling (especially for the transfer of prisoners) and to improve the efficiency and speed of procedures, while respecting the principles of publicity, orality, immediacy and the adversarial process.
The national project under implementation is delivering two variants of the technical solution: A stationary facility in the court room and a mobile system for use in different locations i.e., prison, Greek embassy abroad or interrogation office. It is a CISCO-based solution, which currently allows VC from the authorized access points; however, connection from other authorised points in a cross-border context is technically possible.
It is interesting to highlight, as a side note, cultural aspects of this change. The MoJ will provide the new system, but courts have no obligation to use that system. There is a wide acceptance amongst professionals, that videoconferencing would be very useful at the national level; however, amending legislation to the Code of Penal Procedure is likely to only allow hybrid VC from the court room and the discussion on fully virtual procedures is still immature. The public has the right to be in the room (“door is always open”) and this is a deep routed belief.
by Zoi Kolitsi
