Electronic documents in Russian courts as a criterion for the electronic maturity of Russia

    It will probably be a great exaggeration to say that the transition of our country to the rails of electronic document management has dragged on for a long time. I would even say that he had stalled seven or eight years ago and is stalling now, without any signs of improvement, about how a car is moving forward, falling into a hopelessly flooded country road and being pushed by passengers already covered in mud from head to toe.

    Confirmation of this opinion was for me the Synerdocs webinar last week on the topic “Electronic documents in court: from submission to decision” .

    The webinar itself, in general, I liked both in content and in conduct (there were private comments that I sent to the organizers privately). The topic is quite relevant, the interest of the audience was visible, questions were filled up, the speakers answered. But at the same time, the presentation of the topic just made at the event showed that it (the topic "Electronic Documents in Court") continues - far from the first year - to be in a very embryonic state.

    First you need to clarify: the webinar was not about IT automation of the courts (not about automation of judicial document management "), but about the provision of electronic documents of the parties (the plaintiff and the defendant) to the court. And it was not about the courts at all, but about the consideration business disputes in the Arbitration Court.

    But even taking into account this limited (albeit rather wide) range of cases, it was possible to conclude that the situation with the use of electronic documents does not look very good. This was evident because the webinar did not address the issue of evaluating the practice of using electronic documents in courts (in this case, Arbitration). It was said that the mechanisms for submitting electronic documents exist, but it was not said how they are used or whether they are used at all!

    But at the same time, it was also evident how narrowly we still understand the very concept of “electronic document” (or even just “document”). In it we actually include only what can be called “official regulated documents” - a certain set of documents, the requirements for which are quite clearly spelled out at the level of legislation (contracts, accounts, etc.). And everything that is described in such requirements seems to be a document and is not at all.

    This situation was clearly visible in the speakers' answer to my question addressed to them via chat. I asked: “How can you file such electronic documents as emails, audio and video recordings with the court?”

    To which he received a completely discouraging answer: "And these are not documents at all, they are evidence." That is, it turns out that our lawyers for some reason share the concepts of “document” and “evidence” (just for reference: the original translation of the Latin word “document” is “evidence, evidence”). And then rather confusing explanations began (it was evident that the speakers were not ready for such a question) - it is probably necessary to print them out (emails), it would be nice to assure the notary. In short, the answers showed that our courts are not ready to work with the use of such important electronic documents as e-mail, the procedures are not prescribed.

    “What do you want - we are just mastering the use of electronic documents!” - I have heard such an answer for many years about complaints about the use of electronic documents in our courts.

    What I would like, I know for a long time. I saw this on a very concrete example 17 years ago.

    In the summer of 2000, a 27-year-old young man came to Moscow from the USA, who, four years earlier, after leaving Moscow State University, left to work overseas. One of the goals of the visit was to "sort out heart matters." Two weeks of disassembly ended in the fact that he urgently married his classmate (I omit the long history of their relationship here). He went back, and the young wife filed a visa application for a trip to her husband at the US Embassy. And she was denied a visa, citing the fact that they entered into a fictitious marriage (namely, to arrange her transfer to America). It was possible to apply for a visa again only after three months. Three months later, the husband again came to Moscow to go for an interview with his wife. But he also brought a CD,

    I do not know how much this CD helped in a positive resolution of the issue. But something else is important here - the consular workers took the disk as a document. They did not demand to print letters on paper, to notify them with a notary. They just accepted them for consideration. That was in the year 2000. We have not yet come to such work with electronic documents.

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