Introduction
For many years, digital transformation in the justice sector was viewed primarily as a technology initiative. The focus was often on replacing paper files, introducing electronic filing or modernising legacy systems.
The 2026 EU Justice Scoreboard suggests that perspective is no longer sufficient.
The European Commission puts the point particularly clearly:
“The digitalisation of justice is key to increasing the efficiency, quality and resilience of justice systems, while facilitating access to justice.”
The Commission also notes that digital tools enhance judicial cooperation and that Member States accelerated modernisation reforms following the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a significant shift in emphasis. Justice digitalisation is no longer being presented simply as an IT objective. It is increasingly treated as a fundamental enabler of effective justice systems.
The 2026 Scoreboard continues to assess justice systems against three essential parameters: efficiency, quality and independence, while also introducing new and updated indicators covering accessibility, digitalisation and other factors affecting the effectiveness of justice.
For courts, tribunals, regulators and public bodies, the challenge is therefore no longer simply whether to digitise.
The challenge is how to use digital technologies to improve outcomes for citizens, legal professionals and justice organisations alike.
Digital Justice Is About Access, Not Just Efficiency
When discussing digital transformation, efficiency often dominates the conversation.Yet the EU Justice Scoreboard places significant emphasis on accessibility as well.
The 2026 edition includes new and updated indicators relating to accessibility to justice for people with disabilities, alongside its detailed monitoring of digitalisation.
The numbers show both progress and a considerable remaining gap:
- All 27 EU Member States provide some online information about their judicial systems, including information on access to legal aid, court fees and eligibility for reduced fees. However, in 10 Member States, defendants and victims still do not have the possibility to follow or pursue their case electronically.
There are also significant differences in the accessibility of digital services.The Scoreboard reports that:
- 5 Member States provide a full range of digital solutions covering criminal, civil and commercial, and administrative justice.
- 23 Member States have taken steps to ensure that judgments published online are accessible to people with disabilities.
- 17 Member States provide for accessible online payment of court fees.
These figures illustrate an important point: digital justice is not simply about putting existing processes online. It is about creating justice services that people can actually access, navigate and use.
Across Europe, justice organisations are increasingly investing in capabilities such as:
- Online submission of claims and documents
- Electronic communication with courts
- Secure information exchange
- Electronic payment of court fees
- Remote participation through videoconferencing
- Online access to judgments and case information
The European Commission identifies digitalisation as a means of improving both access to justice and the efficiency and resilience of justice systems. Regulation (EU) 2023/2844 also establishes electronic communication and electronic payment mechanisms for cross-border proceedings and provides a legal basis for videoconferencing in cross-border civil, commercial and criminal matters.
For citizens, digital access can mean avoiding unnecessary travel, receiving information more quickly and engaging with justice services through channels that fit around their daily lives.
Digitalisation therefore improves more than efficiency.
It can improve accessibility, continuity and the overall experience of engaging with the justice system.
High-Performing Justice Systems Are Increasingly Digital
One of the most striking findings in the Scoreboard is the variation in operational performance between justice systems.
The 2026 edition contains 10 years of efficiency data, covering 2014–2024, allowing longer-term trends to be identified rather than focusing only on year-to-year changes.
The report notes that following the disruption caused by COVID-19:
“2022 saw a return to the efficiency levels of 2019.”
It further reports that in 2024, 17 Member States reported a clearance rate above 97% in the broad categories of cases covered by the indicator. A high clearance rate indicates that courts are generally able to deal with incoming cases and avoid the accumulation of new backlogs.
At the same time, the Scoreboard shows significant variation in the length of proceedings and the number of pending cases between jurisdictions.
This is important because digital transformation should not be confused with efficiency on its own.
The Scoreboard does not establish that digitalisation automatically produces higher clearance rates or shorter proceedings. Instead, it demonstrates that effective justice depends on a combination of organisational, procedural, human and technological capabilities.
The lesson is therefore more nuanced:
Digital transformation alone does not guarantee better outcomes, but modern digital infrastructure has become an increasingly important foundation for delivering them.
The Commission’s broader Digital Justice@2030 strategy makes this direction explicit. Its objective is to accelerate digitalisation so that European justice systems become more efficient, resilient and secure, with initiatives including greater digital access to case law, improved videoconferencing and the eventual full digitalisation of cross-border proceedings.
Data Has Become a Strategic Capability
The EU Justice Scoreboard itself exists because performance data matters.
The European Commission describes the Scoreboard as an annual comparative information tool designed to provide:
“objective, reliable and comparable data”
on indicators relevant to the efficiency, quality and independence of justice systems.
The 2026 edition contains a decade of comparative information covering 2014 to 2024. This long-term dataset enables policymakers and justice leaders to identify trends in efficiency, quality, accessibility and judicial independence.
For justice organisations, this reflects a broader shift.
Case management platforms are no longer simply repositories for documents and records.
They are becoming critical sources of operational intelligence.
Questions such as:
- Where are delays occurring?
- Which processes are creating bottlenecks?
- How are workloads changing?
- Where are cases accumulating?
- Which reforms are delivering measurable improvements?
can only be answered effectively when reliable operational data is available.
The 2026 Scoreboard also highlights the importance of machine-readable judicial decisions. All Member States have at least some arrangements for producing machine-readable decisions across civil/commercial, administrative and criminal cases, although the maturity of those arrangements varies considerably.
This matters because structured judicial data can support not only reporting, but also search, transparency, interoperability, analytics and—where appropriate—future applications of AI.
The strategic value of a modern case management platform therefore extends beyond workflow automation.
It is also the infrastructure through which justice organisations understand their own performance.
Better Justice Systems Support Economic Confidence
The benefits of effective justice extend far beyond court administration.
The 2026 Scoreboard states:
“Well-functioning and fully independent justice systems can have a positive impact on investment and are key for investment protection.”
It adds that such systems are:
“associated with greater productivity and competitiveness.”
The Commission notes that effective justice systems can reduce transaction costs, strengthen confidence, encourage investment and support innovation and economic growth.
The evidence extends beyond the Commission itself.
A 2025 study published in the European Economic Review, using an international panel covering up to 90 countries in its baseline analysis, found a statistically significant positive relationship between access to justice and economic development. Its benchmark estimates suggest that a 1% increase in access to justice is associated with a 0.4 percentage-point increase in five-year GDP-per-capita growth.
The 2026 Scoreboard also highlights the investment perspective.
93% of large companies surveyed said that they systematically and continuously review rule-of-law conditions, including judicial independence, in the countries where they invest.
These findings demonstrate that justice modernisation is not simply an operational objective.
It is also an economic one.
The quality of justice infrastructure can affect the environment in which businesses invest, enforce contracts, protect intellectual property and resolve disputes.
What This Means for the UK
Although the UK is not included in the EU Justice Scoreboard, the themes identified by the report are highly relevant.
Across courts, tribunals, ombudsman services, inquiries and regulators, organisations face similar pressures:
- Increasing service expectations
- Growing case complexity
- Resource constraints
- Demand for digital-first services
- Greater scrutiny around performance and transparency
The Scoreboard evaluates justice systems primarily through three core parameters:
- Efficiency
- Quality
- Independence
These priorities mirror many of the objectives driving justice modernisation initiatives across the United Kingdom.
The European Commission’s broader digital-justice strategy is also relevant beyond the EU. Its stated objective is to use digital technologies to make justice systems more efficient, resilient and secure while improving access to justice.
The findings reinforce the idea that digitalisation should be viewed not as a standalone technology project, but as a strategic capability that supports better outcomes.
How Casedoc Supports Digital Justice
Delivering digital justice requires more than replacing paper forms.
It requires a platform capable of supporting modern service delivery from end to end.
Casedoc helps courts, tribunals, regulators and public sector organisations modernise operations through:
- Digital case management
- Electronic filing
- Workflow automation
- Secure communications
- Online service delivery
- Performance reporting and analytics
These capabilities directly support many of the priorities highlighted throughout the EU Justice Scoreboard, including efficiency, accessibility, resilience and evidence-based decision-making.
The wider direction of travel is clear.
Modern justice systems increasingly need technology that connects people, processes, information and performance data rather than simply digitising individual tasks.
That is the difference between digitising a process and digitally transforming a justice service.
Digitalisation Is Ultimately About Better Outcomes
Perhaps the most important message from the EU Justice Scoreboard is that digitalisation is not an end in itself.
The goal is not simply to implement new technology. The goal is to create justice systems that are more accessible, more efficient, more resilient and better able to serve citizens and businesses.
