Session étude déc 2003 E révisée

Information system Mrs Maria CRUZ DEL VALLE PINTOS, High Council of Justice, Spain Introduction In the present session on the Justice Administration as a service to citizens, we cannot ignore the relevance of a good information system for the empowerment of citizens before the Justice Administration. A democratic society cannot leave its citizens unaware of and alienated from the activity of the Justice Administration. The users, as recipients of the action of the Justice Administration, and the citizens -both as holders of popular sovereignty and as taxpayers, therefore, sustaining the system- are entitled to know and monitor its operations. They also need to be aware of what they can expect when they interact with the system. In this document we shall review how this problem has been approached in Spain over the last few years, with the introduction of this concept: information as a citizens´ right and, consequently, as a duty of the Justice Administration. We also intend to analyse what type of information is demanded by citizens and how this issue is settled in the Charter of Citizen’s Rights Before the Administration of Justice, recently approved by Spain’s Parliament. We shall, then, focus on the systems that have been set up to satisfy the citizens´ right to information and shall conclude by dealing with the problems and challenges we are currently facing. Citizens Information in the Administration of Justice. The ...