THE INTEGRITY OF THE USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA BY JUDGES: THE PROBLEMS OF ADAPTATION OF THE LEGISLATION TO THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE DIGITAL SOCIETY

Abstract

The article provides a comprehensive analysis of the legal uncertainty of national legislation in the light of judges' use of social media as a requirement for their virtuous behavior in the era of digitalization of public life. For the judicial system, the challenges of the new globalized society create uncertainty and have a synergistic nature. Within the limits of the indicated issues, the issue of legal regulation is quite blurred, since there is no conceptual and categorical apparatus at the legislative level that would determine the aspects of social media and the integrity of the judiciary. It was determined that judges act not only as citizens of the state, but also as its representatives, therefore the issue of integrity of information and behavior in social media related to judges is of great importance for the development of modern jurisprudence in accordance with European standards. It is indicated that at the international level, within the scope of the researched issues, there are two groups of norms that regulate the issue of using social media. The first group includes legislation regulating the right to freedom of speech of a judge, like any person living in modern society in accordance with the generally recognized principles of equality, justice and humanism (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms). The second group of norms includes norms that relate to the substantive use of social networks by judges as representatives of the judiciary (CJEC Conclusion No. 25 (2022) on the freedom of expression of judges, Codes of Judicial Ethics). The author motivated the need to update the current legislation regarding the integrity of the judge's behavior in the following aspects: an additional instruction in the Code of Judicial Ethics that judges should be careful about using social media both at the author's level and by members of their family, as this can also be considered a manifestation of dishonesty the judge, his bias or pressure on him; creation and implementation for use of the Recommendations on the ethical use of social media by judges and the Instructions on informatization and security for the judiciary.