E-LITIGATION IN THE REPUBLIC OF NORTH MACEDONIA – NEAR OR DISTANCE REALITY?

The trend of the digitalization of the trade and communications led to digital transformation of the public services. The courts as judicial power have to become part of this process. In that order the civil procedure i.e. litigation, must be reformed and updated. This is why the issue of legal regulation of e-litigation is more and more important. Precisely because of this the subject of this paper is an analysis of the Strategic plan of the Ministry of Justice 2020-2022, the Strategy for information and communication technology in the judiciary 2019-2024 of the Ministry of Justice and the Information with planned activities for digitalization in the judiciary for 2021 of the Government of Republic of North Macedonia and the Macedonian legislation in the context of the possibility of functioning of e-litigation,. The main thesis of this paper is that currently the Law on Civil litigation does not sufficiently regulate the issue of e-litigation. Due to this, the Macedonian legislator is facing the challenge to prescribe precise and clear rules for conducting e-litigation as soon as possible, as well as to provide conditions for the e-litigation rules really to work in the practice of the courts