New tools for e-justice: legal research available to any citizen

New tools within the e-Justice field are emerging helped by advances in technology as well as the social changes given by the Information & Knowledge Society, but the judiciary is often considered as a conservative field, traditionally very formalized and pre-established, where legal actors have rigid roles to interact. Electronic justice is an essential part of e- Administration within the justice field for shaping a modern public administration of justice, and openness in public services is becoming more and more a key concept. In this paper, we show a projection of these concepts in a new software introduced as a real case, deployed and put into operation in a court of last instance. A closer and more citizen-centric approach has been the starting point for development and can be a model for promoting research in e-justice for all audiences, experts and amateurs. This work provides an innovative vision of e-justice ICT based on the concept of closer to citizens as a key element in the development of ICT in legal issues. For this purpose the factors that make electronic justice is introduced, putting in context the research in the legal field and how a more open justice with the citizen as the first requirement for a judicial system can be considered. Finally a real implementation is presented.