Electronic Enforcement Document as a Component of Digitalization of Legal Proceedings

Abstract

The study examines the transformation of approaches to the form and functional role of enforcement documents in the context of the introduction of electronic document circulation within the justice system. It is argued that the departure from an exclusively paper-based model of enforcement documents leads to a reconfiguration of established procedural constructs inherent in traditional enforcement proceedings and necessitates a reassessment of the place of such documents within the mechanism of judicial protection of violated, contested, or unrecognised rights. The electronic enforcement document is shown to combine the characteristics of a judicial procedural act and an electronic document, which requires compliance with specific legal requirements concerning its creation, authentication, and use. The provisions of Ukrainian procedural codes and the Law of Ukraine «On Enforcement Proceedings» are analysed as forming the normative prerequisites for the existence of an electronic form of enforcement documents. The research identifies a range of terminological, procedural, and technological inconsistencies arising from the parallel use of paper-based and electronic enforcement documents, as well as from insufficient coordination between the judicial and enforcement stages of the process. Particular attention is devoted to the analysis of European experience in the digitalisation of the enforcement of judicial decisions, where electronic enforcement documents are generally not treated as an autonomous legal institution but operate as an element of an integrated digital enforcement environment. The study substantiates the conclusion that the Unified State Register of Enforcement Documents, by its functional nature, belongs to the enforcement domain and should be integrated into the Automated System of Enforcement Proceedings. Such an approach is necessary to ensure efficiency, security, and legal certainty in the enforcement of decisions.