Intertwining Judicial Reforms and the Use of ICT in Courts: A Brief Description of the Portuguese Experience

Abstract

This paper, focusing on the Portuguese experience, analyzes changes on the legal framework and the governance requirements in the different stages of development and implementation of courts’ ICT. To this end, the paper provides for a concise description of the Portuguese justice system and of the main challenges its organization and territorial division has faced in the last decades. Follows a description of the introduction of the two main courts’ information systems in: CITIUS (for judicial courts) and SITAF(for administrative and tax courts). The paper then on focuses the recent measures adopted under the Justiça + Próxima plan, analyzing the main needs they intend to address and goals they expect to fulfill, in the attempt to understand if they will be able to introduce the new era of courts e-services that has been promised.