Objective data for more effective justice: EU justice scoreboard

The annual EU justice scoreboard is an information tool to help the European Union (EU) achieve more effective justice by providing objective, reliable and comparable data on the quality, independence and efficiency of justice systems in all EU countries.

ACT

Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Central Bank, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions - The 2015 EU justice scoreboard (COM(2015) 116 final of 9.3.2015)

SUMMARY

WHAT DOES THE JUSTICE SCOREBOARD DO?

The justice scoreboard helps to identify possible shortcomings and to encourage EU countries to carry out any necessary, structural reforms in the justice sector. Effective justice systems help foster economic growth, hence their relevance for the European semester, the EU’s annual economic policy coordination process.

KEY POINTS

The key findings of the 2015 scoreboard:

• while there is some improvement in the efficiency of justice systems in EU countries, the situation varies from one EU country to another;
• despite efforts to enhance the use of information and communication technology (ICT) tools for judicial systems, some EU countries still experience discrepancies in the availability and use of ICT tools, e.g. for electronic communications between courts and parties;
• in the majority of EU countries, over 20 % of judges took part in continuous training on EU law. This exceeds the annual target of legal practitioners who need to be trained in order to reach, by 2020, the objective of 50 %;
• most EU countries enable free online access to civil and commercial judgments for the general public;
• most EU countries are still to reach a gender balance of 40-60 % of female/male judges.

For more information, see the EU justice scoreboard on the European Commission's website.

last update 20.08.2015