The Digital Revolution: A Threat or a Blessing for Older Peoples’ Access to the Law (from Inclusion to Exclusion)

Article 1 of the French Declaration of Human Rights of 1789 sets out the principle that everyone is equal before the law from birth. If this principle exists, there is no doubt that we are not all equal in fact, because we are all different. One of the purposes of the law is therefore to restore the balance between individuals. For several years now, public policy has sought to ensure that all individuals have equal access to the law and justice. However, the inequalities encountered are of several kinds. There are generational inequalities, which stem from the difficulties that people of different ages have in gaining equal access to the law. Here, it should be noted that the populations whose access to the norm is weakened are very often the oldest. Added to this are territorial inequalities relating to the isolation of certain rural populations who will not be able to access certain legal or judicial access points. One of the measures designed to remedy this problem is the dematerialisation of access to law and justice. The aim is to give everyone access to the same level of knowledge, but also to make it easier for individuals and litigants to do their work. But this digital revolution is not without its problems. The deployment of digital technology is creating a real digital divide across the country. This might not be so serious if new technologies did not play such an important role, especially in fundamental areas such as access to the law and justice. The digital revolution is also creating new forms of vulnerability. The question then arises as to how to deal with these new tools to ensure that older people have access to the law, while at the same time not exacerbating their vulnerability.