The 2016 EU Justice Scoreboard

Ingo Weustenfeld

European Commission Directorate General Justice and Consumers Unit C1 - Justice policy and Rule of law

What is the EU Justice Scoreboard?

• Annual information tool: a comparative overview on the independence, quality and efficiency of the justice systems of Member States.

• Equal footing: does not promote any particular type of justice system

• Contribution to identifying potential shortcomings, improvements and good practices

Why an EU Justice Scoreboard? Assisting the EU and the Member States to

achieve more effective justice

Since 2012 the improvement of quality, independence and efficiency of national justice systems is a priority in the EU annual cycle of economic policy coordination (European Semester).

The EU Justice Scoreboard feeds the country-specific assessment on economic policy and structural reforms in the context of the European Semester.

Effective justice systems

Essential for the rule of law, democracy and…

• Growth and social stability

• Effective implementation of EU law

• Strengthening of mutual trust

Right to an effective remedy before a court (Art. 47 Charter)

What makes a justice system effective?

EU Justice Scoreboard indicators:

• Efficiency

• Quality

• Independence

The EU Justice Scoreboard: methodology

• The 2016 EU Justice Scoreboard uses different sources of information:

• Group of national contact persons

• Co-operation with specific Committees (e.g. CoCom)

• CEPEJ (Council of Europe)

• Eurostat, World Bank, World Economic Forum

• European judicial networks

Main conclusions of the 2016

EU Justice Scoreboard

• Efficiency

• Quality

• Independence

Efficiency: general overview

Indicators measure the length of proceedings for civil, commercial and administrative cases, the capacity of courts to handle their workload, and the pending cases (backlogs).

Some positive signs: the length of litigious civil and commercial cases has in general improved; improvement also in several Member States that faced particular challenges with a high number of pending cases.

Efficiency – Length of proceedings • Time needed to resolve litigious civil and

commercial cases (1st instance/in days)

Efficiency – Pending cases • Number of litigious civil and commercial pending

cases (1st instance/per 100 inhabitants)

Efficiency – Specific areas

The 2016 EU Justice Scoreboard presented information on the average length of court proceedings in the following specific areas:

• Insolvency

• Competition

• Electronic communications

• Intellectual property rights (Community trade mark)

• Consumer protection

• Public procurement

Electronic communications: Average length of judicial review cases against decisions of national regulatory

authorities applying EU law on electronic communications (in days)

12

Quality: general overview

• The 2016 Scoreboard focuses on factors that can help improve the quality of justice systems such as

• easy access to justice

• adequate resources

• effective assessment tools

• appropriate standards

• New indicators introduced such as on legal aid, training and standards.

Quality – Accessibility: Small claims procedures online

For each category maximum 100 points, in total maximum 700

Quality – Resources: Percentage of continuous training activities on judicial skills

Judicial independence: general overview

• For the first time, the Scoreboard presents the results of two Eurobarometer surveys on perceived judicial independence from the point of view of citizens and businesses.

• The Scoreboard also shows up-to-date figures on legal safeguards for certain situations where independence is at risk.

Perceived independence of courts and judges among the general public

Perceived independence of courts and judges among companies

Structural independence: The safeguards regarding the transfer of judges without their consent (irremovability of judges)(source: ENCJ/COM)

Follow-up

• The Scoreboard feeds the country-specific assessment on economic policy and structural reforms carried out in the context of the European Semester.

• Commission continuously encourages judicial networks to strengthen their assessment of the effectiveness of legal safeguards aiming at protecting judicial independence.

Questions?

Dr. Ingo Weustenfeld

European Commission

Directorate-General Justice and Consumers

Unit C1 - Justice policy and Rule of law