Legal and Ethical Issues in Designing Online Courts

This research explores and analyses whether online courts perform a judicial function in accordance with the right to a fair trial and the right to fair and secure user’s personal data protection to all groups in society. By adopting a descriptive and critical approach, the author analyses the main operating principles of online courts and legal and ethical issues that may occur in designing and implementing online courts in conjunction with these rights. The result of this research shows that online courts provide greater access to justice to society and they would satisfy the needs of modern society with technological knowledge. At the same time they do not provide access to the most vulnerable groups that may not have or have limited internet access, or have not enough technological and legal knowledge, as a result of not ensuring equal access to justice to all groups in society. Taking into account that online courts perform a judicial function in the traditional court sense, they are bound by Article 6 (1) of the European Convention on Human Rights and the principles of personal data of the General Data Protection Regulation, but at present they cannot ensure their observance in relation to an open, transparent and impartial trial, as a result of a partial violation of the rights enshrined in these norms.