The creation of the post of justice and digital affairs minister is hardly the triumph we're being sold. It is an empty political agreement, which will rather have a negative impact on the sector. The imaginary reform based on made-up reasoning is like an exercise in moving sand from one hill to another, which will result in some of the sand getting lost and the de facto inaction leading to squandering of resources, with activities necessary for managing risks being postponed yet again.

Let us start with the reasoning provided. A highly adjustable and flexible justice system has played an important supportive role in the development of the Estonian digital state. Technological preparedness to perform tasks more efficiently makes up just a third of what is needed. Legislation must support doing things differently, and the target group – citizens in this case – must be ready to adopt the new solutions.

This all happened in unison when the digital state was new. People's trust in their own state and the solutions it offered was high. Different ministries worked together both on the details of planned solutions and how best to adopt them. Political will, support and, at times, pressure made possible what had seemed impossible before.

That our digital systems have become brittle and cooperation between different parties poor is neither caused by nor repairable through reorganizing ministerial areas of responsibility. Especially now, when mutually dependent digital solutions and new digital capabilities are of critical importance and effect, all ministries, and the ministers than run them, must find a way to really cooperate.

If the problem is unsupportive legislation, it is not just up to the justice minister to resolve. Fiscal issues aren't just the concern of the finance minister. Connecting national IT systems to international digital environments is not only up to the interior or health ministers.

Merging the justice and information technology portfolios makes as much sense as marrying justice to education and research (the role of technology in education is exploding), the interior or public health (access to and the rules of using open data determine to a considerable degree which types of systems to build) or any other ministerial area of responsibility.

The solution's shortcomings are vividly illustrated by recent news of how the digital minister wants to delegate strategic decisions to companies that directly benefit from them. Eesti 200, many members and sponsors of which appear to take a great interest in national digital topics, seems happy with the fact that the minister responsible for the sector is unfamiliar with it and is delegating her tasks to interested parties.

Secondly – the focus. The main problem with our digital solutions is not the legislation that supports it but the fact that the government neither understands not is interested in addressing long-time technological arrears. Instead, we see efforts to come up with cool marketing copy and go after topics, which, considering Estonia's digital development and capacity, would have been outdated a decade ago.

We have landed, in terms of our understanding, where European countries that asked us for tricks and tips were 20 years ago. The difference lies in that while their interest was only being whetted, ours seems to be fading.

Repairing the fragile foundation and joints requires coordinated efforts that transcend ministries. The same goes for studying new technological possibilities and their adoption: the subject matter of artificial intelligence, including its potential benefits and dangers, requires, in addition to supra-ministerial coordination, close cooperation between research institutions and the private sector. As we've found, a supportive legal environment is just one critical aspect of many.

Thirdly, on the practical side of things. Running another ministry's departments or transferring departments from one ministry to another entails more than printing new calling cards, due to areas of responsibility and job migration. It takes time to develop and introduce cooperation models that support continued improvement of efficiency. People are not cogs in a machine. Rather, they are the "machine" that keeps the state going. Destruction cannot be the alternative to perceived stagnation.

The "cross pollination" of ministers and sharing of foreign trade-related tasks has been going on between the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for years, with the ensuing confusion (more or less) kept in check courtesy of good people and at the expense of other activities, which would probably support the state's development in a more substantial way. It is not a good model, and we have no reason to believe introducing it at the Ministry of Justice will prove smoother or more successful.

Efforts to divide responsibility work to water it down, allowing strategic level executives to do nothing while "working extra hard." It seems to me that in a situation where risks associated with existing digital solutions have long since become critical, state spending on digital solutions is opaque and inefficient and discovering and adopting new digital possibilities is a core component of national competitiveness, another few years of indecision and doing nothing constitutes an insensible expense for the taxpayer.

Will the reshuffling of ministerial portfolios and areas of responsibility cause the digital state to collapse? Certainly not. But will we see ill-considered IT developments and uncoordinated squandering of budgetary resources continue? Unfortunately, yes.

What is more, the change will alter the decision-making process necessary for executing development plans for a long time, create unnecessary extra work for several ministries' officials, make it more difficult to find and keep good people in critical positions, complicate interministerial cooperation, draw attention (and investments) away from critical areas and perpetuate the illusion that enthusiastic, slogan-heavy stagnation can still take Estonia and the sector forward.

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