As Europe let their courts decline

Collapse of waste water drains at the Brussels Palais of Justice, the judicial offices calling Lisbon, waiting during the years Audiences in London. After years of subfinancing in justice systems throughout Europe, the continent is being crisis in its court.

During the last decade, as Europe has faced the stutter economies, a hustle -style pandemic and the impact of the war, justice has routinely directed to the cuts of expenses by governments that have prioritized other parts of the public kingdom such as health and education.

The result has been ruined the courts and the scarcity of lawyers with public funding, creating a set of cases and erosion of trust in the justice system in a number of countries. Problems have become so serious that leading lawyers warn that they threaten to undermine the rule of law, which bases European institutions and cross -border trade.

The discomfort of slow burning in Europe has taken a different form of the sudden turbulent crisis Donald Trump has submitted United States legal establishmentpromoting the executive branch to the point of challenge of the judiciary.

Direct threats to the rule of law, with politicians based on the Spanish courts in Hungary, there are also in parts of Europe. But they sit alongside the chronic and trawler problems in the administration of justice that covers much of the national courts of the continent and do not seem easier to solve.

A civil or commercial case of first instance in Italy, one of the first four EU economies, can take a year and a half to erase if the procedures work at their typical pace. In France, Spain and Poland, almost less than a year on average for a routine case.

Criminal court setbacks have won a record in England and Wales in the United Kingdom, while countries like Greece, Italy and Albania are also struggling to reduce the time it takes to end criminal cases.

In March, a defendant in London accused of threatening the public with a machete who told him that his The three -day trial could not be done until October 2028. His honor judge, Charles Falk, responded “Wow” when his secretary told him the next available date.

And even routine disputes take years to resolve.

A litigious divorce in Monaco took an average of 1,292 days to manage -in 2022, a period that has increased almost constantly since 2012, according to the Council of Europe. Last report on the quality of justice in Europe.

Between The 46 Member States In the Council of Europe, created in the wake of World War II to protect the rule of law, the average budget assigned to the judicial system was 0.31 percent of GDP by 2022, found the report.

The expense is equivalent to about 85 euros per capita and failed in many countries to maintain the pace of inflation for almost a decade. In 2018, the average budget was 0.33 percent of GDP.

For tax governments, justice has been a lower priority in part because, while all voters are concerned about conscious services such as health, only some come in contact with the legal system.

“From an election point of view, it is not so sexy,” said Pierre-Dominique Schupp, President of the Council of Bars and Societies of Law of Europe. “Justice has been disprioritized throughout Europe.”

According to Marc Van der Woude, President of the General Court of the European Union, justice has even become a disadvantage for many politicians in Europe in recent years.

The rule of law “is not something that helps you to win elections. On the contrary, it is often a means to be elected today,” said Van der Woude.

But, no matter how tempting it may have been for hunger governments of justice funding systems, Europe’s legal establishment is becoming more and more concerned with regretting it.

The United Kingdom Post Office scandal, in which hundreds of postmasters were mistakenly convicted of charges, including theft, fraud and false accounting from defective computer evidence, did not directly be from the cuts of expenses.

But he showed how abortions of justice, among the eldest in British legal history, can capture the public imagination.

When the scandal was finally put in the head after a television drama stood on the broadest audience, the United Kingdom government decided that it was better to create unprecedented legislation that exposed the sentences that the sentences that were sentenced Leave it in court to handle.

The concern is that high -profile scandals will explode.

Backlogs of long cases, stubborn officer and malpractice also affect civil disputes, which cover crucial areas such as housing, immigration and life arrangements for children.

In Cyprus, it takes about 800 days on average to solve a civil case, the longest in Europe, and this is before any appeal, according to EU data in 2022, the most recent available. According to the Council of Europe, Greece and Italy, they have similar times of time to erase civil and commercial cases of their courts at 746 and 540 days respectively.

Governments do not constantly recognize “that a citizen with a legal problem, such as someone with a health problem,” said Richard Susskind, a legal technology specialist.

Susskind said that ongoing disputes can be an “open sore”, analogous to a physical wound. “Do not feel that governments say we do not finance the health service because we do not believe that an open wound is important.”

Clare Ovey, Director of Human Rights of the Council of Europe, cites the impact of everyday problems ranging from divorce to residents who simply want to stop the neighbors “crushing their junk for their fence”.

“If you have to wait a long time to solve it, you can obviously cling to your life,” he said.

The problems are even more frustrating, given the promise of technology. Successfully digitization seems to a large extent because of the justice system.

“They digit the things that should not and do not digitize things that they should do,” said Penelope Gibbs, director of the Transform Justice charity, in England and Wales.

Public access to cases in criminal cases is “totally miserable”, adding that some rules in the courtroom are “draconian”.

Gibbs cites the ban on audio recordings in English courts, which prevents the defendants who are not represented – who are struggling to follow what was being said – to obtain transcripts without having delays or costs.

In Italy, the defendants must also pay the documents, even a unique photocopy, which can add a huge expense to a case, according to corporate crime lawyer Filippo Ferri.

“I have crazy experiences with the inefficiencies of judicial offices,” he said. “For example, you have a compulsory procedure period, but you cannot obtain the relevant cases of cases within an appropriate period.”

Many procedures are “too expensive, too much time, too combative, and they only feel out of place in a digital society,” said Susskind, who for 25 years was a technological advisor to the chief Lord, the largest judge in England.

“Systems are inefficient bureaucracies based on processes,” he said. “It’s a global phenomenon.” Difficulties in the legal system are especially difficult, as “a fundamental change requires a wide legislative and regulatory change,” he added.

However, several main lawyers say it has been advanced. “Resistance to change can be overestimated,” said Hugh Mercer KC, President of the England Board of Lawyers and the International Wales Committee.

“It was very difficult to do with the statements” that exposed the case of a party in civil procedures in England and Wales, he said. “You can now take them,” he added, even if it is not immediately and with payment.

Authorities of more jurisdictions also use technology to listen to cases remotely, especially in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, which forced judges to become more comfortable with practice.

FT Series: Justice Broken

This is the first article in a series on the system of justice that is chronically funded in Europe that risks reducing the rule of law and scare investors.

First part As Europe let their courts decline

Part 2 “Millions of flies in the evidence room”: inside the Palau de la Justice in Belgium

Part 3 “Law” in Spain: the case against the Sánchez family

Part 4 The rise and fall of the “Italian torpedo”

Video audiences in countries like the United Kingdom have become regular in a way that was not foreseen before pandemic.

A good number of European nations, including Denmark and Norway, also achieve the trend and are among the highest classified worldwide in terms of effectiveness and accessibility of their civil and criminal justice systems, according to the Index of the Stone of Law of the World Justice Project 2024.

However, despite increasing digitalization in business and other parts of the public sector, “the rate of use of digital tools in the field of justice is still far less than the availability rate,” found the report of the Council of Europe.

Věra Jourová, who until last year was the vice -president of the European Commission who supervised the rule of law, in November said that it was more important than ever to properly finance systems of justice so that they could maintain public confidence, especially given the threats to democracy in many European countries.

“Justice is not a luxury,” Jurová said in one of his last public appearances as a curator. “It’s something we need (as) air and clean water.”

View Janina Conboye data