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 2021 EU Justice Scoreboard
Date: 2021-03-11
Institutions: Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers, European Commission
Subjects: fundamental rights



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ROADMAP  






Roadmaps aim to inform citizens and stakeholders about the Commission's work in order to allow them to provide feedback and to participate effectively in future consultation activities. Citizens and stakeholders are in particular invited to provide views on the Commission's understanding of the problem and possible solutions and to make available any relevant information that they may have. 






Title of the initiative




2021 EU Justice Scoreboard 






Lead DG – responsible unit 




DG JUST – C.1 






Likely Type of initiative




Non-legislative 






Indicative Planning




June 2021  






Additional Information




https://ec.europa.eu/info/policies/justice-and-fundamental-rights/upholding-rule-law_en 






This Roadmap is provided for information purposes only and its content might change. It does not prejudge the final decision of the Commission on whether this initiative will be pursued or on its final content. All elements of the initiative described by the Roadmap, including its timing, are subject to change.










A. Context, Problem definition and Subsidiarity Check






Context 






Effective justice systems are essential for implementing EU law and for upholding the rule of law and the values upon which the EU is founded. Effective justice systems are also crucial for the implementation of EU law because national courts act as EU courts when applying EU law. 


Against this background, the annual EU Justice Scoreboard presents an annual overview of indicators focusing on the essential parameters of effective justice systems: efficiency, quality and independence. It is part of the EU’s toolbox to strengthen the rule of law by assisting Member States to achieve more effective justice.


Effective justice systems are also essential for mutual trust, the investment climate and the sustainability of long-term growth. Well-functioning and fully independent justice systems can have a positive impact on investment, and therefore contribute to productivity and competitiveness. They are also important to ensure effective cross-border enforcement of contracts and administrative decisions and dispute resolution, which are essential for the functioning of the single market. The EU Justice Scoreboard informs the country specific analysis in the context of the European Semester and the Recovery and Resilience Facility, and provides elements for assessing the efficiency, quality (including digitalisation) and independence of national justice systems and thereby aims at helping Member States to improve the effectiveness of their national justice systems.


The EU Justice Scoreboard does not present an overall single ranking and does not promote any particular type of justice system. It treats all Member States on an equal footing. 


In 2021, the Commission will present its 9th edition. 






Problem the initiative aims to tackle 






Effective justice systems that uphold the rule of law have been identified as having a positive economic impact. Where judicial systems guarantee the enforcement of rights, creditors are more likely to lend, businesses are dissuaded from opportunistic behaviour, transaction costs are reduced and innovative businesses are more likely to invest. For these reasons, improving the effectiveness of national justice systems is a priority of the European Semester — the EU’s annual cycle of economic policy coordination. The Annual Sustainable Growth Strategy 2021, which launches the next cycle of the European Semester and sets out strategic guidance for the implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Facility, reiterates the link between, on the one side, the rule of law and independent and efficient justice systems and, on the other side, a business- and investment-friendly environment (
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). 


The 2021 EU Justice Scoreboard will assist the Member States in identifying potential shortcomings, improvements and good practices as well as trends in the functioning of national justice systems over time. It will also feed the 2021 Rule of Law Report, presented by the European Commission. 






Basis for EU intervention (legal basis and subsidiarity check) 






Effective justice systems are crucial for the functioning of the European Union, for the effective application of EU law, for mutual trust between national courts and between Member States, for the internal market and for an investment-friendly environment. 


Whenever a national court applies EU legislation, it acts as a ‘Union court’ and must provide an effective judicial protection to everyone, citizens and enterprises, whose rights guaranteed in EU law were violated. The importance of this right to an effective remedy is enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (Article 47). The efficiency, quality and independence, as the essential elements of effective justice systems, are crucial for upholding the rule of law and the values upon which the EU is founded.


The EU Justice Scoreboard is an information tool which does not present an overall single ranking and does not promote any particular type of justice system.  It treats all Member States on an equal footing.


The EU Justice Scoreboard also informs the European Semester process, which in 2021 will be strongly linked with the implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Facility, an instrument to help repair the immediate economic and social damage brought about by the coronavirus pandemic and support an economic recovery. In order to respect the principle of equality between Member States and to keep track of progress, it is indispensable to have a comparative overview of how justice systems function in all Member States. 






B. What does the initiative aim to achieve and how 






The EU Justice Scoreboard assists the EU and Member States to achieve more effective justice by providing data on the efficiency, quality, and independence of justice systems in all Member States. Such data is essential to support reforms in national justice systems required to render justice systems more effective for citizens and businesses. 


The EU Justice Scoreboard also allows studying trends how justice systems have changed since the first scoreboard was published in 2013. It thus helps to identify the areas where progress has been made as well as areas where continued effort is needed. 


Information from the EU Justice Scoreboard will inform the 2021 Rule of Law Report as well as the country-specific analysis in the context of the European Semester and the implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Facility. 






C. Better regulation






Consultation of citizens and stakeholders 






The EU Justice Scoreboard is developed in cooperation with the relevant public authorities of the Member States, in particular through the group of contact persons for national justice systems (regular meetings take place throughout the year), and stakeholders. These include the judicial networks and the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe, which are also sources of information and data. Citizens’ and businesses’ perceptions of the independence of courts and judges are surveyed every year through Eurobarometer surveys and presented in the EU Justice Scoreboard. 


The EU Justice Scoreboard is a comparative tool, which evolves in dialogue with Member States, the Council and the European Parliament, judicial networks and other stakeholders. 


As the EU Justice Scoreboard presents objective data provided by Member States and stakeholders presented above, it does not require a public consultation. 


The EU Justice Scoreboard will be made publicly available on the website of the European Commission, https://ec.europa.eu/info/policies/justice-and-fundamental-rights/upholding-rule-law/eu-justice-scoreboard_en.






 Evidence base and data collection 






The Scoreboard uses a range of sources of information. Large parts of the quantitative data are provided by the Council of Europe European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice with which the European Commission has concluded a contract to carry out a specific annual study. The study also provides detailed comments and country-specific factsheets that give more context. 


Other sources of data are: the group of contact persons on national justice systems, the European Network of Councils for the Judiciary, the Network of the Presidents of the Supreme Judicial Courts of the EU, Association of the Councils of State and Supreme Administrative Jurisdictions of the EU, the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe, the European Competition Network, the Communications Committee, the European Observatory on infringements of intellectual property rights, the Expert Group on Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing, Eurostat, the European Judicial Training Network, and the World Economic Forum.


No impact assessment is needed for this initiative because the EU Justice Scoreboard is a regular annual information tool and is a non-legislative initiative.










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                        Communication from the Commission — Annual Sustainable Growth Strategy 2021, 17.09.2020, COM/2020/575 final, p. 11.