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For the last 4 years the Court Case Management System (CCMS) has saved citizens and lawyers nearly BGN 13 million BGN for traveling, waiting in queues and staying in courts. This is evident from the analysis of the system and its functionalities. Users have reduced the time spent in courtrooms by a total of 3,800 days, and over BGN 550,000 has been saved on paper for court acts and documents, according to statistics. The Court Case Management System was launched by Information Services on June 23, 2020, initially in 17 courts, and gradually covered all 151 district, regional, appellate, Military Appellate Court, and Supreme Court of Cassation.
During the period, over 1 950 000 electronic court cases were initiated through the CCMS and the number of completed cases exceeded 1.6 million. The ratio of completed cases to hose initiated in the electronic system reached an impressive 84.4%, which is a significant increase compared to the period before the introduction of the electronic services. There is also a significant difference in the number of appealed cases. While the appeal rate in all courts was around 13% for the period 2017-2023, it is only 4% through the CCMS.
" "The introduction of the UISC and its capabilities has significantly increased the transparency, publicity, and traceability of court cases," stated Nikoleta Stoyanova, Head of Business Analysis at Information Services. According to her the access of citizens and legal entities to justice has been noticeably facilitated, the work process has been significantly optimized and the efficiency of magistrates and court staff has improved.
The UISC is actively used by over 11,670 users, including more than 2,000 judges, over 4,000 jurors, over 4,900 court employees, and over 600 summoners. All judges can access electronic court cases at any time and from anywhere in the world. The ability for magistrates to work remotely through a secure channel with a high level of security expands the possibility of reviewing electronic files and writing cases without the need for the judge to be physically present in the courthouse.
The summoners work has also been significantly facilitated. For the fourth year now, they can record the delivery of court documents through a mobile application, significantly reducing the time required to organize the entire process, ensuring reliable tracking and control of visits.
The developed functionalities of the software have also led to increased interest in the Single e-Justice Portal (SEJP). In the last 22 months since its launch, the portal has reported three times more users compared to the period 2015-2020 and over 200,000 incoming documents submitted entirely electronically.
The CCMS consist of 19 functional and 19 system modules. It unifies the rules and processes of case management, increasing the efficiency of the work of magistrates and court staff, as well as the entire court administration. The rules and processes for case management, increases the efficiency of magistrates and court staff, and the entire judicial administration. The system provides easy access for parties to court cases through the SEJP and real-time access to data from other information systems and checks in external registers. The system is integrated with 15 external information systems of the executive and judicial authorities.
The Court Case Management System allows cases to be tracked in real-time, even before paper copies of documents are received by the respective court. It unifies the entire case management process – initiating a case, random assignment of a reporting judge, conducting court sessions, issuing and anonymizing acts, judicial statistics, judge workload, financial management of cases, summons management., etc.
"The CCMS has laid the solid foundations of e-justice in Bulgaria and has shown that even in systems with established traditions in traditional paper-based document processing, processes can be facilitated and digitized," said Nikoleta Stoyanova.