1. Improving Access to Legal Information Some Recent Developments in the Netherlands and the European Union Open Justice in Europe and Romania, 10 March 2016, Bucureti Marc van Opijnen Publications Office of the Netherlands (UBR|KOOP) marc.opijnen@koop.overheid.nl

2. Marc van Opijnen 2

3. Topics European E-Justice On-line legal information in the Netherlands (highlights) Publication of court decisions on the internet Some legal reflections Bringing order into chaos: the European Case Law Identifier … and beyond 3

4. European e-Justice A European ‘programme’ started in 2006: Improving multilingual access to national legal information for all EU citizens and legal professionals Interconnecting national registers Secure electronic cross-border judicial proceedings One-stop-shop: the European e-Justice Portal. 4

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7. EU2016.NL Strong supporter of the e-Justice programme and an active or leading participant in all related projects, e.g.: e-Codex Interconnection of land and insolvency registers European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) Videoconferencing During our Presidency we will keep e-Justice in the spotlight Conference in Amsterdam (19-20 May): E-Justice. It’s not about Technology! 7

8. 10-11-2015 8 On-line Legal Information in the Netherlands Ongoing work @ The Publications Office of the Netherlands (UBR|KOOP)

9. Some Highlights Electronic promulgation Consolidated legislation The Law Pocket Official announcements of municipalities and regions Open Data portal Linked data. 10-11-2015 9

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12. Needs of the Civil Servant / Lawyer Legislation at hand: – On very specific domains – Up-to-date – With previous versions – Editable – Annotated – Related documents – Shared with colleagues – Portable. 10-11-2015 12

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14. 10-11-2015 14 Law Pockets: Edited collections of national or regional legislation on (very) specific topics. With annotations, annexed documents and links. Law Bundles: Generated collections of legislative families, or regulations of one specific municipality, province or water board

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17. Extra Features in the Law Pockets 10-11-2015 17

18. More Granular Content 10-11-2015 18

19. Editorial Notes 10-11-2015 19

20. Linked Data 10-11-2015 20

21. Linked Data 10-11-2015 21 Also to case law

22. Public Case Law Databases 22

23. The Public Judgment Art. 6 European Convention on Human Rights: “Judgment shall be pronounced publicly but the press and public may be excluded for all or part of the trial in the interests of (…)” The European Court of Human Rights (Pretto vs Italy): “(…) does not feel bound to adopt a literal interpretation. It considers that in each case the form of publicity to be given to the ‘judgment’ under the domestic law of the respondent State must be assessed in the light of the special features of the proceedings in question and by reference to the object and purpose of Article 6.” 23

24. The Public Judgment No obligation to publish the judgment (paper or database) Publication on the internet as a way of public pronouncement? (Nikolova and Vandova vs. Bulgaria) Publication has to be anonymized (art. 8 ECHR) But not the pronouncement (art. 6 ECHR) Requirement of publicity is satisfied by the applicants not being prevented to make the decisions public themselves (Ramsahai vs. the Netherlands, not on art. 6). 24

25. National Case Law Databases 25

26. 26 “Selection should ensure, on the one hand, broad and comprehensive access to information on court decisions and on the other hand, that the accumulation of useless information is avoided.”

27. Case Law Databases Publish (nearly) everything: Data protection issues Information overflow: which are the important / relevant judgments? Additional selection? 27

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29. Case Law Databases Publish only selection Supreme courts: negative selection Publish all decisions, unless evidently not relevant Lower courts: positive selection Publish only decisions that are relevant from legal or societal perspective Good metadata / summaries After some years still information overflow. 29

30. Case Law Database in the Netherlands From 1999: one database for all courts Highest jurisdictions (4): 163.000 decisions Courts of Appeal (4): 67.000 decisions District courts (11): 132.000 decions Nearly all have ‘summaries’ and additional metadata Available as Open Data (XML) since 2002. 30

31. Inter-European Case Law Search? 1982: Cilfit Judgment of the European Court of Justice: obligation for the national judge to consult case law of courts of other Member States European Parliament resolution of 9 July 2008 on the role of the national judge in the European judicial system: European judicial area (…) requires (…) mutual general knowledge of the legal systems of the other Member States (…); improved availability of national databases on national court rulings concerning Community law; all national judges should have access to databases containing pending references for preliminary rulings from all Member States. 31

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33. Early Solutions 33

34. Overarching Problems How to cite a foreign decision? How to find a (cited) judgment? How to find case law on a specific Regulation or Directive? How to find translated versions or summaries? Needed: common information architecture. 34

35. The European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) Bucureti | 10-03-2016 This project is co-funded by the European Union

36. Topics  The ECLI framework  The ECLI Search Engine  Current Implementation  Building on ECLI  Further down the road Bucureti 10-03-2016 36

37. 37 ECLI Framework Council Conclusions 2010 Bucureti 10-03-2016

38. ECLI Framework Core Elements  The Identifier  A Set of Metadata  The National ECLI Coordinator  ECLI Website  ECLI Search Engine. 38 Bucureti 10-03-2016

39. ECLI Framework The Identifier  Identifies the judgment, not the case  Identifies the judgment at an abstract level, not a specific document  Vendor and medium neutral  As citation readable by humans and computers  Not (necessarily) replacing national identifiers  Fixed format of five elements, but flexible:  ECLI:country:court:year of judgment:unique number  ECLI:NL:HR:2016:34  ECLI:EU:C:1982:335  ECLI:CE:ECHR:1983:1208JUD000798477  ECLI:SI:CSTS:2015:VIII.IPS.56.2015 39 Bucureti 10-03-2016

40. ECLI Framework Core Elements  The Identifier  A Set of Metadata  The National ECLI Coordinator  ECLI Website 40 Bucureti 10-03-2016

41. ECLI Framework The ECLI Website 41 Bucureti 10-03-2016

42. ECLI Framework Core Elements  The Identifier  A Set of Metadata  The National ECLI Coordinator  ECLI Website  ECLI Search Engine. 42 Bucureti 10-03-2016

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46. Current Implementation Court of Justice of the European Union Board of Appeal European Patent Office European Court of Human Rights 46 Bucureti 10-03-2016 Implementation not started Work in progress Implemented in public databases

47. Building on ECLI Introduction  16 partners from 10 Member States  Started 1 October 2015  Duration 1,5 – 2 years. 47 Bucureti 10-03-2016 This project is co-funded by the European Union

48. Building on ECLI Objectives 1.(Further) national implementation of ECLI in 8 Member States 2.Promotion of ECLI, for use in IT-systems and legal citations 3.Assess current use and discuss ECLI 2.0 4.Guidelines on publication of case law Selection Data protection Open Data 5.Linking data 48 Bucureti 10-03-2016

49. Building on ECLI Objectives 5. Linking Data  The query: ‘Search court decisions on EU Regulation 1408/71’ still performs poorly  Variations in citing  Variations in languages  Not specified in metadata  BO-ECLI: improve search results by making legal references computer readable  Software will be publicly available. 49 Bucureti 10-03-2016

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52. Further Down the Road ECLI is a means, not an end  With the ECLI search engine:  Translated summaries of landmark cases easily accessible for all in the EU  Comparative law studies  Improved visibility on how EU law is applied at national level  Easier citing  Browsing citation networks  Computer translations  Advanced statistics. 52 Bucureti 10-03-2016

53. MARC-indicator

54. Thank you for your attention! BO-ECLI www.bo-ecli.eu | info@bo-ecli.eu This project is co-funded by the European Union