Filing a Lawsuit Under Russian Procedural Law in the E-Justice Era

The study sets out to evaluate the existing electronic filing of lawsuit services in civil litigation in Russia as an additional opportunity to access justice and implement the right to be heard. The author identifies the reasons for continuing to use the court system by mail or in person. Because ordinary people and lawyers are cautious about new technology, a lawsuit filed online might not be taken seriously. Additionally, the guarantees provided by law aim to preserve the date of the initial court appeal in cases where proceedings cannot be initiated due to noncompliance with the required formalities for the statement of claim. Based on the functionally equivalent method developed by UNCITRAL, the right to access justice has been shown to be unjustifiably violated by the procedure of technical verification of claim submitted to the court, which empowers a court official to notify the plaintiff that the documents cannot be recognized as received. The study evaluates the statements in current legal literature regarding the use of artificial intelligence by existing court filing services, as well as plans to develop a cassation appeal service using predicative justice technologies in terms of their impact on access to justice and the right to be heard. It is proposed that ethical rules be developed on the use of artificial intelligence in communication between the plaintiff and the court at the stage of applying to the court. Such an approach should allow to evaluate the administration of justice as posing the greatest risks to human rights in general and procedural rights in particular. The right of a lawyer to access judicial practice and tools for its analysis should be considered as part of the right to be heard.