25 September – In Varaždin Croatia, high-level representatives of the Council of Europe, the European Commission’s Directorate General for Structural Reform Support (DG REFORM) and the Croatian Ministry of Justice, Public Administration and Digital Transformation attended the kick-off meeting of the project “Paperless commercial courts in Croatia” on Wednesday to promote a joint project aimed at modernising the Croatian judicial system in particular commercial courts.

Since its start in August 2024, the project has been supporting the Croatian authorities in offering more efficient judicial services to Croatian citizens. It is ushering in a new wave of digital transformation that will optimise the commercial court operations by piloting four commercial courts in Dubrovnik, Split, Varaždin and Zagreb in transforming their operations to paperless.

The project furthermore supports workflow digitalisation of Croatia’s commercial courts to increase their overall efficiency and will help optimise resources, reduce the length of proceedings and reduce backlogs, in line with Council of Europe standards, the European Convention on Human Rights and the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights. It also supports Croatian commercial courts to increase use of fully digital workflows for judges and court staff.

The project, whose specific objective is to support Croatia to design, develop and implement reforms, is co-funded by the European Union via the Technical Support Instrument and implemented by the Council of Europe in cooperation with the European Commission.

For more information, see the Croatia - Paperless Commercial Courts - Implementation of Human Rights, Justice and Legal Co-Operation Standards.