Case-law project

The Commercial Case-law Data Access Dashboard extracts data from decisions of the Kosovo commercial instances of the judiciary – the Prishtina Basic Court Economic Department, the Court of Appeals Economic Department and the Supreme Court’s commercial decisions – and places them into categorized slots of analytical data. It extracts data directly from court commercial judgments currently sitting in Prishtina Basic, Appeals and Supreme courts’ archives. By first digitalizing those decisions, and making them accessible to potential commercial contestants, and by extracting major aspects of their data into analytical tools of a searchable engine, the Dashboard serves as an innovative, analytical data-driven platform that will make transparent and court-client friendly information pertaining to interpretative standards of commercial legislation by the courts’ practice in the last three to five years. One may ask why that aspect would increase access to analytical data in our justice system?

One has to reiterate that the court practice, namely in this case the commercial case-law, serves as a precedent that must echo equal understanding and foresee uniform interpretation of analogous contestations in the future. Business applicants presently lack a system where they would identify what is the interpretative standard on major commercial issues, e.g. applications for merger between a local and a foreign company, the interpretative standard of the commercial jurisdictions on concerted practice in competition law, the interpretative standard on purchase of shares in a limited liability company, etc. Extracting these standards, categorizing them on the basis of specific keywords, and making them accessible to the public would be a major savoir-faire relief for the business community and any potential commercial-law contestant.

The data are reliable and credible because they are extracted from official decisions of the Kosovo courts. The KJC itself will have a much clearer access to analytical data interpretation once the Dashboard is on. It also complements the MoJ’s objective for increased digitalization of court data, as noted in the recent Strategy on Rule of Law. While the intention is not to replicate an enormous model of open data such as the US Electronic Case Files which are available through Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) service, the purpose would be to at least offer an opportunity for minimal access to informed judicial data for interested commercial audiences in Kosovo. The Dashboard will also support younger judges of commercial justice, and the upcoming Commercial Court, in understanding the case-law practice of commercial justice over the years. It will also serve as a tool that will increase improved image of the commercial justice in Kosovo given that it will give the public a window whereby justice is to be understood from practical case-resolution scenarios.