Key findings of the EU Justice Scoreboard 2022

What is the EU Justice Scoreboard?

The EU Justice Scoreboard is a comparative information tool which aims to assist the EU and Member States to improve the effectiveness of national justice systems. It does this by providing data on the efficiency, quality and independence of the justice systems in all Member States. It is one of the tools in the EU’s Rule of Law toolbox used by the Commission to monitor justice reforms undertaken by Member States.

The Scoreboard contributes to identifying good practices and potential shortcomings. It shows trends in the functioning of national justice systems over time. It does not present an overall single ranking, but an overview of how all the justice systems function. This is based on various indicators that are of common interest to all Member States.

The Scoreboard does not promote any particular type of justice system and puts all Member States on an equal footing. Whatever the model of the national justice system – or the legal tradition in which it is anchored – timeliness, independence, affordability and user-friendly access are some of the essential features of an effective justice system.

Why are national justice systems important for the EU?

Effective justice systems are essential for the application and enforcement of EU law and for upholding the rule of law and other values upon which the EU is founded and which are common to the Member States. They ensure that individuals and businesses can fully enjoy their rights, strengthen mutual trust, and help to build a business and investment-friendly environment in the single market. Effective justice systems are crucial for the implementation of EU law because national courts act as EU courts when applying EU law.

What about the link between the Scoreboard and the Rule of Law Report?

The EU Justice Scoreboard is part of the EU’s rule of law toolbox and one of the sources of information for the Rule of Law Report. It provides comparative data on the functioning of national justice systems, while the annual Rule of Law Report presents a qualitative assessment of significant developments related to the rule of law in all 27 Member States. The Justice Scoreboard and the Rule of Law Report thus complement each other. The 2022 EU Justice Scoreboard has been further developed also to reflect the needs for additional comparative information as observed during the preparation of the 2022 Rule of Law Report.

The EU’s rule of law toolbox consists of a wide range of tools to carefully monitor, assess, and respond to the rule of law issues in Member States, among others infringement procedures, the European Semester, the EU Justice Scoreboard, the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM), the procedure of Article 7 TEU, and the comprehensive Rule of Law Mechanism, which includes the annual Rule of Law Report.

What are the main innovations in the tenth edition of the EU Justice Scoreboard?

The 2022 edition of the Scoreboard contains 14 new or remodelled figures that extend our understanding of:

• the efficiency of administrative authorities in competition and electronic communication cases;
• specific arrangements for access to justice by vulnerable groups (for persons with disabilities and child-friendly proceedings);
• availability of online information about the judicial system;
• companies’ perception of the effectiveness of investment protection by the law and courts, and legal safeguards regarding decisions or inaction of administrative authorities;
• new indicators on potential security checks on judges, the options of higher/Supreme Courts to take decisions on the consistency of case-law on their own initiative, safeguards relating to the temporary employment of judges/prosecutors on political posts and the bodies with power to conduct criminal investigations;
• fine-tuned indicator on the possibility to challenge the decision not to prosecute.

What are the main findings of the 2022 EU Justice Scoreboard?

• Efficiency trends were positive in most civil, commercial and administrative cases, based on the available data from 2012 to 2020. However, in 2020, data reflects a negative impact on efficiency in some Member States, possibly related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and therefore of a temporary nature.
• Regarding proceedings before national competition authorities, 10 Member States reported that proceedings took less than 1,000 days. Some Member States which experience efficiency issues in the judicial review of competition cases are among the more efficient when it comes to proceedings before national competition authorities.
• In terms of available arrangements to support persons with disabilities in accessing justice under equal conditions, all Member States have at least some arrangements in place – mostly procedural accommodations or information available in accessible formats.
• Regarding access to justice and its impact on investor confidence, business environment and functioning of the single market, the 2022 EU Justice Scoreboard maps out certain aspects of judicial control over acts and omissions of public administrations, based on specific business scenarios. In almost all Member States, companies may receive financial compensation for damage caused by administrative decisions or by administrative inaction, and courts may suspend the enforcement of administrative decisions upon request from a citizen or business.
• Indicators remained the same for the digitalisation of justice, in order to ensure continuity and comparability. The 2022 EU Justice Scoreboard shows that Member States continue to improve the digitalisation of their justice systems. Although most Member States already use digital solutions in different contexts and to varying degrees, there is significant room for improvement
• The perception of judicial independence of the general public had improved in 17 Member States since 2016. However, since last year, the public perception of judicial independence has decreased in 14 Member States. In a few Member States, the level of perceived independence remains particularly low.

How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected the justice systems?

The 2022 EU Justice Scoreboard is the first edition where we could truly observe the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. They could be the reason for certain results in the areas of length of judicial proceedings, number of cases and clearance rate. Nevertheless, these results should be of a temporary nature. We will continue monitoring and assessing the short-term and long-term effects that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on justice systems.

How can effective justice systems have an impact on the economy?

Effective justice systems which uphold the rule of law have a positive economic impact. Where judicial systems guarantee the enforcement of rights, creditors are more likely to lend, businesses are dissuaded from opportunistic behaviour, transaction costs are reduced and innovative businesses are more likely to invest.

The beneficial impact of well-functioning national justice systems for the economy is supported by a wide range of studies and academic literature, including from the European Central Bank, the European Network of Councils for the Judiciary, the International Monetary Fund, the OECD, the World Economic Forum and the World Bank.

The national recovery and resilience plans include justice reforms and investments in a number of Member States. The EU Justice Scoreboard will help monitor progress in implementing these reforms.

How does the 2022 EU Justice Scoreboard examine the effectiveness of justice?

The Scoreboard uses indicators that examine the three main features of an effective justice system: efficiency, quality and independence.

Efficiency

The indicators related to the efficiency of proceedings include: caseload, estimated length of judicial proceedings (disposition time), clearance rate (the ratio of the number of resolved cases over the number of incoming cases) and the number of pending cases. The Scoreboard also presents the average length of proceedings in specific fields where EU law is involved.

Quality

Easy access to justice, adequate resources, effective assessment tools and the use of information and communication technologies are key factors that contribute to the quality of justice systems. The Scoreboard uses various indicators to cover digitalisation, such as access to online information and to court judgments, digital-ready procedural rules, use of digital technology by courts and prosecution services, secure electronic tools for communication or online access to case files.

Independence

The Scoreboard examines the perception of judicial independence, both among the general public and in companies. It also presents information on national legal safeguards for certain situations where judicial independence could be at risk. In addition, the Scoreboard provides overviews of the organisation of national prosecution services.

What is the methodology of the EU Justice Scoreboard?

The Scoreboard uses various sources of information. Large parts of the quantitative data is provided by the Council of Europe’s European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ), with which the Commission has concluded a contract to carry out a specific annual study. This data ranges from 2012 to 2020 and has been provided by Member States according to CEPEJ’s methodology. The study also provides detailed comments and country-specific factsheets which give more contextual information and should be taken together with the figures.

Other sources of data are:

the group of contact persons on national justice systems,

the European Network of Councils for the Judiciary (ENCJ),

the Network of the Presidents of the Supreme Judicial Courts of the EU,

the Association of the Councils of State and Supreme Administrative Jurisdictions of the EU (ACA-Europe),

the European Competition Network,

the Communications Committee,

the European Observatory on infringements of intellectual property rights,

the Expert Group on Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism, Eurostat,

and the European Judicial Training Network (EJTN).

Why are some data missing?

Although data are still missing for certain Member States, the data gap continues to decrease. The remaining difficulties in gathering data are often due to insufficient statistical capacity or the fact that the national categories for which data is collected do not exactly correspond to the ones used for the Scoreboard. The Commission will continue to encourage Member States to reduce this data gap further.

For More Information

Press release 2022 EU Justice Scoreboard

Factsheet 2022 EU Justice Scoreboard

Mesdames et Messieurs,

Je suis heureux de vous retrouver pour la présentation de l’édition 2022 du Tableau de bord de la justice de l’Union européenne.

Aujourd’hui, c’est une édition encore plus spéciale car nous fêtons le 10^ème anniversaire de cet outil important d’analyse des systèmes de justice dans l’Union.

Au cours de ces 10 dernières années, le Tableau de bord de la Justice est devenu un élément important parmi les instruments dont nous disposons pour suivre les développements de l’État de droit dans l’Union européenne.

Ce Tableau permet d’analyser les évolutions des systèmes judiciaires de manière cyclique, tout en y ajoutant presque chaque année de nouveaux paramètres.

Mais ce Tableau de bord permet aussi de  fournir des informations comparatives qui viennent complémenter d’autres rapports ou politiques.

Je pense par exemple au Rapport annuel sur l’État de droit, au suivi des plans nationaux de relance et de résilience dans le cadre de réformes spécifiques, ou des recommandations spécifiques du semestre européen.

Mais permettez-moi maintenant de revenir en 2013.

C’était la première édition du Tableau de bord. La première fois que la Commission présentait des informations comparatives sur l’efficacité, la qualité et l’indépendance des systèmes judiciaires nationaux – les trois éléments essentiels à une justice efficace.

Depuis lors, nous avons considérablement développé cet instrument.

Alors que les premières éditions présentaient des aperçus d’indicateurs essentiels avec des données provenant de sources extérieures, les plus récentes éditions contiennent une plus riche collection de données de haute qualité.

Ces données sont maintenant souvent recueillies spécifiquement par la Commission en collaboration avec les réseaux judiciaires et d’autres sources, dans le but de nourrir le Tableau de bord.

L’utilisation du Tableau de bord a elle aussi évolué au fil des années. Nous avons vu beaucoup de discussions se tenir sur des projets de réformes, à une échelle nationale, sur la base des observations du Tableau de bord. Comme cela est aussi maintenant le cas pour le Rapport annuel de l’État de droit.

Nous avons aussi noté des références au Tableau de bord de la justice dans des rapports nationaux, des documents de politique générale, des déclarations faites par les Cours suprêmes, les Conseils de la magistrature et les ministères de la Justice.

À titre indicatif, il nous a également été souvent demandé d’envoyer un certain nombre de copies traduites du Tableau aux parlements nationaux pour les discussions sur leur système judiciaire.

Le Tableau est donc devenu une référence européenne en matière de justice et un point de départ pour des débats parlementaires. Je suis ravi de ce résultat.

Le Tableau de bord de la justice a également contribué à dissiper certains mythes et stéréotypes sur les systèmes de justice.

Cela s’applique aussi bien au sein même des pays, lors d’une analyse de leur propre justice ; qu’entre les pays entre eux en ce qui concerne les perceptions de l’efficacité et de l’indépendance des autres systèmes judiciaires.

Puis, plus récemment, le tableau de bord de la justice et ses informations sur l’indépendance de la justice ont joué un rôle de plus en plus important dans le cadre de notre engagement pour protéger l’État de droit dans l’Union européenne.

Et plus récemment encore, le Tableau de bord a également montré son importance et sa valeur en période de crise sanitaire mondiale.

La pandémie de COVID-19 nous a rappelé l’importance de renforcer les outils pour assurer la résilience de la justice dans toutes les crises.

La numérisation de la justice est devenue un enjeu crucial pour maintenir les tribunaux ouverts et fournir un accès à la justice à tout moment.

Les indicateurs détaillés sur la numérisation, présentés aujourd’hui pour la deuxième fois, constituent un outil de suivi essentiel qui montre aux États membres où des améliorations sont encore possibles, leur permettant ainsi d’être mieux armés pour faire face aux crises futures.

Le Tableau de bord de la justice et le rapport annuel sur l’État de droit se complètent.

Le rapport sur l’État de droit analyse les développements significatifs dans les États membres, présentés dans des chapitres spécifiques à chaque pays, et cette année, il comprendra également des recommandations aux États membres.

En outre, il bénéficie du contenu du Tableau de bord, qui permet aux lecteurs d’obtenir plus d’informations détaillées sur les systèmes judiciaires nationaux, sur leur indépendance, leur qualité et leur efficacité.

Let’s now move to the findings to this year’s edition.

Compared to editions published over the past 10 years, the 2022 EU Justice Scoreboard provides us with several analytical developments:

comparative data on efficiency spanning over 10 years,

a comprehensive overview of specific arrangements for access to justice,

trends on digitalisation of justice,

and more and new indicators on perception and on structural independence.

In addition, in comparison with last year’s edition of the Scoreboard, the 2022 publication brings several innovations:

For instance, on efficiency, monitoring has been extended to the length of proceedings of administrative authorities.

On quality, new figures are available on specific arrangements for access to justice for persons with disabilities and for child-friendly proceedings.

And on independence of justice, there are new charts on the perception of companies on the effectiveness of investment protection by the law and the courts.

Furthermore, there are also data on the decision of a prosecutor not to prosecute a case. It gives a more detailed overview of the safeguards available in the case of victimless crimes such as money laundering or corruption. Review of prosecutorial decisions before a court is important, particularly in view of the effective protection of budgets, including the EU budget.

All these innovations are at the same time our response to valuable inputs provided by different stakeholders in public consultations or in discussions in different forums.

In the past decade, the EU Justice Scoreboard has become an important tool for observing trends.

In particular, this year we could see some of the effects on the national justice systems that could potentially be attributed to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As regards the overall efficiency, the 2022 edition shows that despite the possible effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the efficiency has improved or remained stable in 10 Member States, while it decreased, although often only marginally, in 11 Member States.

As regards the quality of the justice system, compared to last year, there have also been improvements, some of them accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the need to adapt quickly to the new ways of working. For example, on the digital-ready procedural rules, in all Member States there are at least some procedural arrangements for the use of distance communication and admissibility of evidence.

As regards perception of judicial independence, the situation remains mixed.

We observe that challenges as regards perception of judicial independence persist: in over three fifths of the Member States, the public perception of judicial independence has improved since 2016.

However, compared to last year, the public’s perception of independence has decreased in about half of the Member States.

This year, the Scoreboard comes ahead of the European Semester’s Spring package, which relies on the findings of the Scoreboard.

This is another example how the EU Justice Scoreboard is used to promote good reforms that further improve the effectiveness of the justice system, alongside the upcoming 2022 Rule of Law Report that we will present in July.

I am proud, as Justice Commissioner, to be the witness of the evolution of the Justice Scoreboard.

Indeed, this instrument is published by the Commission, but it is also very much the success of a joint cooperation with the Member States, national courts and councils for the judiciary, as well as businesses and citizens.

I am happy to continue working with the Member States, and the European Parliament, to further develop this tool which is an essential component of our rule of law policy.

Source – EU Commission