The constitutional guarantees of the electronic notifications in judicial proceedings and its singularities in the Contentious-Administrative field

Abstract

The implementation of ICT in the working methods of the Administration of Justice and, in particularly, the legal requirement to process and manage legal cases using only electronic means, entails the emergence of new problems to which Law must provide a response in order to keep up a comparable level of guarantee for the protection of citizens’ rights, in this case as justiciable. This work analyses the problems that have arisen as a result of the use of electronic notifications in judicial proceedings, the case-law response to the issue at different levels —particularly by the Constitutional Court—, and the particular issues that are faced in the contentious-administrative judicial field given the regulation of the common administrative procedure on electronic notifications. Ultimately, this is an issue that is essential to ensure that, under the appearance of greater efficiency, fundamental rights such as the right to defence and the right to effective judicial protection are not violated.