Evolving Cross Border Judicial Procedures in the Changing Social and Economic Ecosystem of the EU

Greater mobility, new forms of trans-national e-business and e-commerce increasingly strain to justice systems and judicial procedures, which have evolved to deal with justice service provision at national level. In the effort to cope with this context, a number of legal instruments have been deployed in the EU in areas such as international jurisdiction, cross-border service of documents, recognition and enforcement. As a further step, harmonised procedures have been introduced for certain types of civil and commercial matters: EOP, ESCP and EAPO. These procedures are an attempt to simplify, speed up and reduce costs of litigation and improve accessibility also for self-represented claimant. Their importance from a legal perspective has been broadly recognized. At the same time, these instruments are a compromise between MS, leaving space to national interpretation in their implementation This result in much complexity that needs to be faced when dealing with cross border cases when compared to national ones. While in theory these procedures are designed to be used without the support of a lawyer, even non-specialized legal practitioners seem to find them difficult to manage. Various initiatives have been taken to improve the situation. The procedures have been revised in the attempt to make them more usable. A European e-Justice Portal has been set up to provide information but also: a wizard to help the user selecting the right procedure, search tools to find competent courts and legal professionals, and tools complete online the forms. Furthermore, a European e-Justice DSI (e-CODEX) has been developed to interlink existing national and European ICT systems in the e-Justice domain. At the same time, the exploration of services that can be provided by third parties through APIs shows the potential for a radical redesign of cross border justice service provision. While there is a growing literature on cross border judicial procedure and justice service provision have been extensively explored from a legal perspective, this topic, which is increasingly relevant in European society still receive little attention from a sociological and organizational perspective. This paper attempts to bridge this gap, describing the complex legal, organizational and technological assemblage that resulted from such effort and its evolution in the attempt to cope with its complex environment. The viability and sustainability of the emerging and foreseen of EU cross border justice institutional arrangements is discussed on the basis of their change potential and limits in face of their shifting social and economic environment, and in light of possible unintended consequence of the ongoing reconfiguration process.