Identifying the Determinants of Judicial Performance: Taxpayers’ Money Well Spent?

42 Pages Posted: 30 Mar 2013

See all articles by Stefan Voigt

Stefan Voigt

University of Hamburg - Institute of Law & Economics; CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute)

Nora El-Bialy

University of Hamburg - Institute of Law and Economics

Date Written: March 28, 2013

Abstract

There have been a sizeable number of studies trying to identify the determinants of judicial performance on the country level. Such a design is appropriate to identify underperforming individual judges or underperforming courts or court districts. However, it is not appropriate to identify institutions conducive to judicial performance. A dataset produced by the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ) contains very detailed information on the judicial systems of the 47 member countries of the Council of Europe. Drawing on an objective variable, we find that (i) resolution rates are not a function of per capita income. In other words: poor countries can also afford them. (ii) Resolution rates are not a function of the court budget. As such, a higher budget will not “buy” more court decisions. (iii) Resolution rates are negatively – and very robustly – correlated with the presence of judicial councils. (iv) Mandatory training for judges is correlated with higher resolution rates. Drawing on the subjectively perceived efficiency of the judiciary as the dependent variable we find that (v) countries belonging to both the French and the socialist legal tradition are less efficient and that (vi) judicial councils are also negatively correlated with our measure of judicial efficiency, in other words: countries that do not have them should not introduce them.

Keywords: Judicial Efficiency, Judicial Performance, judicial productivity, number of resolved cases, judicial councils

JEL Classification: H11, K40, 040, P51

Suggested Citation

Voigt, Stefan and El-Bialy, Nora, Identifying the Determinants of Judicial Performance: Taxpayers’ Money Well Spent? (March 28, 2013). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2241224 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2241224

Stefan Voigt (Contact Author)

University of Hamburg - Institute of Law & Economics ( email )

Johnsallee 35
Hamburg, 20148
Germany
+49-40-428385782 (Phone)
+49-40-428386794 (Fax)

CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute)

Poschinger Str. 5
Munich, DE-81679
Germany

Nora El-Bialy

University of Hamburg - Institute of Law and Economics ( email )

Johnsallee 35
Hamburg, 20148
Germany

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