This paper addresses the legal regulation of Electronic Judicial Litigation (i.e. e-Litigation) before UAE Civil Courts, focusing on recent developments introduced by the UAE legislator in the field of litigation via modern electronic means of communication, under the provisions of the new Civil Procedures Act No. 42 of 2022. In this sense, this research paper will adopt an analytical approach, focusing on the adequacy of those new legal provisions concerning the regulation of litigation procedures electronically. Hence, this study will address the following topics in detail: the nature and formation of e-Litigation; the initiation of this type of litigation via electronic legal notices; as well as the stages of discovery, adjudication, and final ruling that is done electronically. On this basis, the paper concludes on a number of results and puts forward some recommendations, especially with regard to the amendment of Article 44 of the Civil Procedures Act, concerning the required data in the submitted Statement of Claim for both the plaintiff and the defendant. Finally, the analysis of the courts’ practice indicates that it is desirable to have an additional provision added to the current legal provisions stipulating the commitment to all litigation guarantees, also in cases involving the traditional judiciary in the field of e-Litigation.

In 1992, the author commenced a second career as a volunteer in the business of advising judicial and justice system leaders in rule-of-law matters on an international scale. At the time, he was employed with the judicial branch of the U. S. Government as a federal trial court administrator. It continued, with occasional full-time assignments, until 2022, a thirty-year odyssey that enabled him to serve on the ground with court, judicial, and justice systems in more than thirty foreign countries. This article summarizes that international experience and various lessons learned over those three decades. Current and future international rule of law advisors and consultants may find a summary of them informative and useful.

As Virtual Court Proceedings (VCP) continues to evolve globally, more considerations are emerging across jurisdictions to drive its acceptability. Given that implementation of VCP is still at a nascent stage in Nigeria, this paper explores the preference for VCP, the progression and the challenges encountered and/or envisaged in the adoption of VCP. The study takes on an empirical approach to elicit the views of practicing lawyers on the phenomenon of VCP in Nigeria. The responses of the 353 respondents were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 22 and the results presented using descriptive statistics. The result showed that the adoption of VCP increased slightly between the period of 2020 and 2023 although the level of adoption is still below the desired mark. However, there remains a budding desire to retain VCP in the adjudicatory system. The implementation of VCP is and could be further challenged by poor infrastructure, technophobia, lack of technological skill and the challenge of tendering documentary evidence as revealed by the study. Investment in infrastructure and training is required to sustain VCP, as are requisite constitutional amendments and harmonization of existing Practice Directions with the Civil Procedure Rules in Nigeria.

Children may be victims of crime under the Indian Penal Code or the various preventive and protective laws. India has passed a special law called the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 and set up special courts to try offences committed on children who haave been victims. As of 2023, over 2,43000 lakh POCSO cases are pending before the Special Courts. This indicates the growing incidence of sexual crimes against children. These courts have made some progress, but have also been faced with several difficulties. This article evaluates the Special Courts for children.

This article examines the Portuguese legal framework of State liability for violation of the right to a decision within a reasonable time and, in particular, the extent to which the case-law of the ECtHR has allowed the Portuguese State to comply with the obligation of an effective remedy to guarantee the reparation of the referred damages. Starting from the analysis of the legislative legal framework which, despite admitting the aforementioned liability, does not foresee the specificities that the subject imposes, we then examine how such a task falls to national judges who, under the influence of the ECtHR’s case-law, have gradually developed a State liability framework capable of fulfilling the obligations of the ECHR by the Portuguese State for compensation for violation of the right to a decision within a reasonable time, andallowing for the assurance of a swift indemnity action to repair the resulting non-pecuniary damage.

It is common to focus on the number of professional judges per capita when assessing the need for judges in various countries. The EU Rule of Law Report is just one example of this tendency. This simple indicator does not, however, consider that the demand for justice in different countries may vary quite a lot because of socio-economic factors. This paper seeks to identify such factors and applies them to produce an alternative indicator for judicial need. The alternative indicator does not depend upon the number of cases reported (to European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice – CEPEJ) by any country. Furthermore, the indicator does not (naively) assume that population size is the only variable that matters when assessing the number of judges. The approach recognizes that social, demographic, political and economic variables have a substantial impact on judicial workload, and thus the need for judges. Even with this “improved” comparative measure of judicial needs, however, any serious assessment of judicial needs will have to go much deeper into the analysis of the specific characteristics of the judicial system in question, since the European judicial systems come in so many variants.

This article analyses the anti-corruption transformative processes triggered by Ukraine’s judicial reform. The subject of the study is the determination of the critical aspects of the success of anti-corruption transformative measures conditioned by the anti-corruption reform in Ukraine. The objectives of the article are to determine the main anti-corruption challenges facing the Ukrainian judicial system and to characterise the main legislative countermeasures. The authors emphasise that a properly functioning system of courts supports the realisation of many development goals – by protecting human rights, resolving social conflicts, and implementing government policy. However, today the judiciary in Ukraine still needs to meet these principles. One of the crucial aspects of judicial reform in Ukraine is undoubtedly the overcoming of corruption, which significantly distorts the independence of judges and the principle of equality. The article is structured as follows: current challenges of the Ukrainian judiciary: corruption and judicial independence (1); the essence of the primary measures of judicial reform (2); the role of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine in curbing anti-corruption measures of judicial reform (3) and the creation of the Higher Anti-Corruption Court as an anti-corruption component of judicial reform. The authors formulated two critical factors for the success of judicial reform. The first factor is the presence of political will and coordinated cooperation between the President of Ukraine and the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. The second factor is the active participation of the public in initiating and controlling the implementation of reform measures.

The article concentrates on backsliding of the rule-of-law in Poland which is being observed already since 2015. This is a process which is neither a sudden nor a recent development and has been confirmed also by a series of judgements issued by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) which address the question of judicial independence in Poland. The protective roles of other key justice system institutions, such as the Constitutional Court and the prosecutorial system, have been seriously compromised over time by the infiltration of government zealots promoting executive usurpation of justice system authority. The key elements of this process are presented to show the mechanism that has been used to dismantle the fundaments of the democratic rule-of-law state.

This anthology describes the shortcomings of transitional justice and the expected benefits of a shift instead to what the editors and others advocate as a transformative justice approach. The book is likely to appeal most readily to those interested in the general topic of the effectiveness of aid programming in fragile and conflict affected states. Part of the hypothesis of the editors and others who advocate for a shift to transformative justice is that the focus of aid should be redirected from state institutions in ways that might more successfully and durably reduce poverty and social and political conflict.

How can we measure judicial reasoning? This question has been around for a long time and several researchers, judges and sociologists have tried to answer it in an attempt to define the process of measurement. Despite a large body of studies available, there are many diverse opinions about this subject and it is not clear what impact these works have on the ways judicial decisions are justified. The reason for differences in measuring the quality of judicial reasoning and setting clear indicators could be attributed to the complexities involved in identifying the process that lead to measurement of quality of judicial reasoning. Following a conference at the University of Debrecen in Hungary, during which authors have reflected on this issue, a book entitled’’how to measure the quality of judicial reasoning’’ has come.