Ethical EU eJustice: elusive or illusionary?
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/14779960680000287 |
| Date | 01 August 2006 |
| Pages | 131-144 |
| Published date | 01 August 2006 |
| Author | Juliet Lodge |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management |
Ethical EU eJustice: elusive or illusionary?
INTRODUCTION
EU institutions and member governments are com-
mitted to realising judicial cooperation as part of a
strategy to guarantee and sustain security in the
EU: the freedom, security and justice agenda. The
three elements clash both in terms of their prioriti-
sation, their mutual compatibility and their feasibil-
ity. The phrase judicial cooperation evokes ideals of
value-free, neutral cooperation designed to produce
justice. It is supposed to be a public good. Yet judi-
cial cooperation in practice is anything but neutral:
it is a political minefield. While the EU goals of pil-
lar III – promoting sustainable freedom, security
and justice – enjoy broad public support, why do
the implementing measures and objectives to
improve security appear to produce opposite effects
to those intended? Why does ejudicial cooperation
in particular aggravate suspicion that the end-prod-
uct will be anything but ‘just’ and fair? Is eJustice a
chimera in the making and ejudicial cooperation
elusive?
Judicial cooperation (a term used as shorthand to
embrace cooperation among all the agencies
involved in combating crime, including legal, cus-
toms, immigration and police agencies) exemplifies
the clashes and dilemmas central to egovernance in
general, epitomises the difficulties in claims-making
regarding making judicial cooperation in practice
acceptable to an increasingly distrustful citizenry,
and highlights the urgent need to combat the pub-
lic diplomacy failure on liberty and security at a
time when ICT applications bring the EU ever-
closer to the citizen while simultaneously aggravat-
ing the trust deficit. Is this especially problematic in
respect of judicial cooperation because government
Info, Comm & Ethics in Society (2006) 3: 131-144
© 2006 Troubador Publishing Ltd.
Juliet Lodge
Jean Monet European Centre of Excellence, Institute of Communication Studies,
University of Leeds, Leeds, UK
Email: j.e.lodge@leeds.ac.uk
eJudicial cooperation is a goal of EU policy. It appears to offer procedural and technical ICT solutions to enhancing EU
security. This paper outlines particular dilemmas posed by operationalising ejudicial cooperation within the EU and its
member states, and assesses how political weakness is reconfigured as a problem of technical ethics. The application
of biometrics and ICT based ejustice potentially bring the EU closer to the citizen without closing the confidence and
trust deficit. The paper first outlines three political dilemmas of ejudicial cooperation: political competence, public
accountability, and globalisation imperatives. It examines the rationale for introducing biometric IDs, highlighting a gen-
eral problem of ejudicial cooperation and egovernance which aggravate the trust deficit. Then, it assesses the technical
and managerial procedures to ethical practices for quality justice and security to combat the trust deficits which elude
open public accountability and compromise trust.
Keywords: biometrics, judicial cooperation, trust, accountability
VOL 4 NO 3 JULY 2006 131
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