January 31 (BTA) - More than 500,000 cases have been instituted in the single court information system in the 18 months since the commissioning of the system, said Information Services AD which developed the system. The project, financed by the European Social Fund under the Good Governance operational programme 2014-2020, had planned for 250,000 cases being instituted in the system by 2023.

The system covers all 153 regional, district, appellate, and military courts, 152 out of which work with the full functionality of the system. Close to 70 per cent of the cases instituted were civil cases, 28 per cent criminal, 3 per cent commercial and the rest were corporate cases.

Information Services AD Executive Director Ivailo Filipov said that calculations show that since the commissioning of the system, it has helped individuals and companies save more than seven million leva and more than 2,300 days, thanks to the electronic access to court acts and papers. The savings from paper alone which would otherwise have been used to print out court acts, totalled 110,000 leva.

Since June 2020, 1.377 million electronic acts were issued, created as electronic documents and signed with a qualified electronic signature. The system is actively used by more than 10,000 users, including 2,000 judges, 4,500 court officials, 3,400 jurors, and 600 court clerks.

More than 660,000 old cases (pre-dating June 2020) have been uploaded in the new system.

Filipov said that the single court information system gave a strong boost to electronic justice in Bulgaria. He added that the system protects people's rights by ensuring publicity, transparency, and traceability of the judicial processes.
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