While Luxembourg spent €193 per capital on its judicial system in 2022 – among the highest sums in Europe – the justice system is not among the top performers in terms of efficiency.
The average time to close an administrative case in Luxembourg was 528 days in the first instance, nearly twice the European median, according to a new report released by the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ) on Wednesday.
The courts performed better in civil cases that took 182 days to be processed in the first instance, while the median in Europe was 239. The CEPEJ did not have data on Luxembourg’s criminal cases record.
While Luxembourg’s spending on the judicial system was high per capita, it was among the lowest spenders as a percentage of GDP, largely due to its outsized economy compared to its population.
Luxembourg spent 0.16% of its GDP on its judicial system – what the CEPEJ calls Implemented Judicial System Budget (IJSB) – in 2022. The average spending in Europe came in at 0.31% of GDP with Ukraine and Montenegro being the highest spenders.
Catching up on IT
The CEPEJ report contains data and analyses on the judicial functioning of 44 European states and two observer states (Israel and Morocco), with the aim of measuring the effectiveness and quality of these systems.
The judicial system budget, as defined by the CEPEJ, includes money allocated for courts, public prosecution and legal aid.
Luxembourg provided €1,379 per case in legal aid in 2022 higher than the average in Europe.
“Adequate funding also contributes to efficient court operations, timely case processing, and strengthening access to justice. It also supports legal aid services and promotes better access to justice,” the report notes.
The document also highlights the importance of implementing new information and communication technologies in the judicial system. Luxembourg has an ICT deployment index of 4.1 out of 10, which is below the European median.
But Luxembourg has performed well in certain specific developments like the paperless justice programme, which promotes digitalisation of external and internal communications and judicial files, the report found.
A whole lot of lawyers
With 493 lawyers per 100,000 inhabitants, Luxembourg scored significantly higher than the Euroepean median of 155 lawyers per 100,000 people.
Also read:Need for future judges could mean more diverse backgrounds
Just over half of prosecutors in Luxembourg were women in 2022, which is higher than the 46% reported in 2012. But only 33% of heads of prosecution offices were women in Luxembourg.
The Grand Duchy had 35 professional judges per 100,000 inhabitants, which is twice as high as the European median.
The average starting salary of a judge in Luxembourg was €96,000, more than twice of the European median. The average starting salary for a prosecutor was also more than twice of what it was in Europe.
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Publish date : 2024-10-16 09:36:00
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