which has resulted in generally unreasonable processing times,” said Riku Jaakkoladirector general of judicial administration.
According to the calculations of the Judiciary, as the largest player in the administration of the Ministry of Justice, the Judiciary needs about 30 million euros of permanent additional funding for personnel expenses each year. In addition, the judiciary needs additional annual funding of around 8 million euros for the years 2023-2026 in order to alleviate the backlog and speed up processing times.
“It is also important to remember to take care of the training and well-being of the personnel working in the judiciary. Development is only possible with competent, professional and well-being personnel,” added CEO Jaakkola.
Average processing times are increasing in general courts
In 2022, a total of 511,715 cases were brought to the district court (2021: 545,327). There were 375,039 cases filed with a summary application, i.e. 32,000 (-8%) less than the previous year. The number of cases decreased by a total of 33,612 cases, which is almost entirely explained by the change in the number of summary cases. In 2022, 51,566 criminal cases were brought to the district court. The average processing time for criminal cases was 6.0 months (2021: 5.8 months). Until 2012, the processing times for criminal cases were less than 4 months, and in recent years, the processing time has slightly increased almost every year. At the end of 2022, there were 5,532 pending criminal cases lasting more than 12 months (2021: 4,658). The share of long-pending cases of all pending criminal cases was 21% (2021: 20%).
7,899 cases were filed in appeal courts (2021: 8,226). The average processing time was 6.5 months. Processing times have increased slightly every year for the past five years. The processing time in 2017 was 5.5 months. The number of pending cases increased by about 50 cases from the previous year.
Long processing times also in the administrative court
There were 17,365 cases brought before administrative courts (2021: 17,479), which is about 100 cases less than in 2021. Of these cases, 24% were immigration cases (2021: 24%), which also includes asylum cases. In 2022, a total of 1,218 asylum cases were brought to the administrative court, which is only slightly less (-2%) than the previous year (2021: 1,248 cases).
In administrative courts, the processing times for environmental and construction cases are particularly worrying. However, the situation should improve, so-called with additional funding for the green transition.
The average processing time in administrative courts was 9.9 months (2021: 9.6 months). The longest delays were in complaints related to the environment (19.3 months), construction (13.2 months), municipality (13.1 months) and taxation (12.5 months). The average processing time for social and healthcare cases was 6.4 months. The average processing time for child protection cases was 9.2 months.
HT
Source: The Nordic Page
