1. COURT PERFORMANCE Does size matter?

2. Overview Are smaller courts inefficient? Are bigger courts
serving as highly specialized units or
working like inflexible dinosaurs?
Austrian findings on length of procedures and CEPEJ’s benchmarks…
Does size matter?

3. Netherlands : Average Productivity

4. Netherlands : Productivity per branch

5. Netherlands : Size matters!
According to productivity: Courts smaller or bigger than 300 FTEs are less productive
And in Austria ?

6. Statistic analysis
Analysis of length of proceedings – factors and measures
Background: People complain most about length of proceedings and difficult wording of decisions – results of opinion poll
Background: The KSV – a private institution of creditors which is one of the big players found out that a limitation of proceedings with one year could save 1 billion Euro per year

7. Austria: Length and size in “C”

8. No relationship between size of court and quick solution of cases

9. AT: Size scaled per score I (Clearance Rate, Efficiency, Disposition Time)

10. AT: Size scaled per score “C” (Clearance Rate, Efficiency, Disposition Time)

11. No relationship between workload of court and quick solution of cases

12. COURT PERFORMANCE Size does not matter at all! What else…?

13. Factors

14. Factors and Measures I
Experts: Deeper analysis showed, that most of work is dedicated to the same experts, overloaded
Solution: Internet database on experts and interpreters – transparency, spread the workload – knowledge of special expertise

15. Factors and Measures II
Judges change during the proceeding: Judges often applied for another post after a very short period of time
Measure: Judges are not appointed for another position before having served at least 18 months

16. Factors and Measures III
Mutual legal assistance:
Measures:
Translations of forms (Intranet)
Translations of relevant provisions (Intranet)
Direct contact between courts within EU