History of a Digital Institution in the Making: Observing more than 14 years of e-CODEX, the European e-Justice System

This chapter tries to tackle the question of what large-scale digital institutions are and how they are built through a 14 + years longitudinal study of e-CODEX, the flagship of EU e-Justice. On the operational level, e-CODEX is an interoperability solution that allows legally valid communication in EU cross-border judicial procedures. Building, maintaining, extending, and making sustainable this solution required an incredibly complex process that included technological, legal, procedural, and organizational exploration and developments, but also EU Member States and EU Institutions negotiations, and even the adoption of an EU e-CODEX Regulation. The study was carried out through a broad range of methodological approaches, including participant observation, informal and formal interviews, focus groups, structured and non-structured questionnaires, and coordination of initiatives to develop e-CODEX. The use of direct observation and synchronous tracking (and discussion with the key actors) of design processes allowed to reveal surprising practices and nonlinear dynamics where normative, technological, and organizational components (co-)evolve over time, often as the result of local actions and fragmented initiatives, and where no authority exercise complete control, in a multiplicity of intertwined processes that defy ex-ante planning but also ex-post reconstructions and description.