The functioning of judicial systems and the situation of the economy in the European Union Member States

Abstract

This report investigates the relationship between the functioning of judicial systems and the situation of the economy in the European Union Member States. The study includes draft country fiches for all EU Member States and a comparative report, reflecting the questions of a scoreboard provided by the European Commission. This list of questions focuses on civil and commercial justice and encompasses 1) Business-friendliness of land and property registration, company registration, insolvency proceedings and obtaining licenses 2)Resources of justice, including budget, human resources, workload and ICT 3) Use and accessibility of justice, including length and cost of procedures, use of simplified and ADR procedures. While in the country fiches, facts, figures and analysis on the performance of individual (country-level) judicial systems are provided, the link with the economic situation is assessed in the comparative part. To our knowledge, it is the first time that such assessment has relied not only on data from surveys or from coding but also actual data provided by the judicial authorities (number of judges, budget, etc.). The findings are preliminary but suggestive. They are preliminary because econometric processing should be implemented to have a more precise assessment. They are nevertheless suggestive because, though weak, correlations go in the expected direction and are statistically significant at standard levels.