Funding programme

The Justice programme is the EU’s funding programme to support judicial cooperation in civil and criminal matters. Read more about the Justice Programme.

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Call overview

This call aims to facilitate effective and non-discriminatory access to justice for all.

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Background

Digitalisation of justice can tangibly contribute to increasing the efficiency and resilience of justice systems. Similarly, progress on European e-Justice can support an effective European area of justice with regard to strengthening judicial cooperation and facilitating access to justice for individuals, legal practitioners businesses, including through the use of novel technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence.

Read more in the call document.

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Objectives

Facilitate effective and non-discriminatory access to justice for all, and effective redress, including by electronic means (e-Justice), by promoting efficient civil, and criminal procedures, and by promoting and supporting the rights of all victims of crime as well as the procedural rights of suspects and accused persons in criminal proceedings.

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Themes and priorities

This biennial call for proposals, under the Access to justice specific objective, covers two priorities:

1. e-Justice priority

The key objective under the e-Justice priority is to contribute to achieving the goals of the Commission Communication on the Digitalisation of Justice in the EU and the Council European e-Justice Strategy and Action Plan 2019-20235 by supporting the implementation of e-Justice projects at the European and national level (as far as they have a European dimension).

2. Victims’ rights and procedural rights priority

Projects to be funded under this priority should:

• contribute to the effective and coherent application of EU criminal law in the area of the rights of persons suspected or accused of crime;
• contribute to the effective and coherent application of EU law in the area of the rights of victims of crime in line with the priorities set up by the EU Strategy on victims’ rights (2020-2025).

Read more in the call document.

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Activities that can be funded

For the e-justice priority:

Project activities under this call would in principle include analytical, conceptual, design and elaboration work, IT software development, quality assurance and related auxiliary measures necessary for the establishment of new IT systems, as well as the expansion and adaptation of existing national and transnational solutions towards addressing the objectives of the call.

The requirements of the eIDAS Regulation, the use of the Digital Building Blocks developed under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) programme, as well as the results from the e-CODEX project and ISA Core vocabularies, should be taken into account if and where relevant.

Supporting activities relating to project management, content preparation, editorial work, communication, promotion and dissemination are also eligible for funding.

For the victims’ rights and procedural rights priority:

The following activities can be covered:

• mutual learning, exchange of good practices, development of working and learning methods which may be transferable to other participating countries;
• exchange and provision of information and development of information and educational tools;
• capacity building for professionals, including training in victim-sensitive communication;
• facilitating cooperation between competent authorities (including where relevant national experts or agencies dealing with the aspects covered by this call) and/or legal practitioners and/or service providers (including multi-disciplinary networks at EU or international, national, regional or local levels) and/or civil society organisations / National Human Rights Institutions / Equality bodies, Ombuds Institutions and national authorities (at national and local level, where relevant, including experts with gender expertise);
• communication activities including dissemination of information about rights and activities raising awareness of the existing rules on rights at EU and national levels, relevant to the priorities of the call;
• training activities, as long as they are of ancillary nature and not the main purpose of the project;
• analytical activities, such as data collection and creation of data bases, surveys, research etc.

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Budget

The indicative available call budget is EUR 10 100 000.

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Eligibility

In order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must:

− be legal entities (public or private bodies)

− be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e.:

• EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs), excluding Denmark)
• non-EU countries: countries associated to the Justice Programme or countries which are in ongoing negotiations for an association agreement and where the agreement enters into force before grant signature (list of participating countries)

Read more in the call document.

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Consortium

For the e-Justice priority:

Proposals must be submitted by a consortium of at least two applicants (beneficiaries; not affiliated entities) and from at least two different eligible countries. The consortium must include at least one public body, private non-profit organisation or international organisation as beneficiary (not as affiliated entity).

Proposals by single applicants or by a consortium from one eligible country are exceptionally allowed, but only if the project application clearly demonstrated potential for EU added value.

For the victims’ rights and procedural rights priority:

Proposals must be submitted by a consortium of at least two applicants (beneficiaries; not affiliated entities), which complies with the following conditions:

• minimum two independent entities from two different eligible countries.
• the consortium must include at least one public body, private non-profit organisation or international organisation as beneficiary or affiliated entity.

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Duration

For the e-Justice priority:

Projects should normally range between 12 and 24 months.

Extensions are possible, if duly justified and through an amendment.

For the victims’ rights and procedural rights priority:

Projects should normally range between 12 and 24 months.

Extensions are possible, if duly justified and through an amendment.