|E|New Zealand|13990<br>F|Colombia|2170<br>E|Uganda|320|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|G|Taiwan|13235<br>F|Peru|2130<br>S|Vietnam|314|
|F|Greece|12110<br>E|Namibia|2120<br>E|Nigeria|260|
|G|Korea|11958<br>F|Tunisia|2090<br>E|Tanzania|260|
|E|Cyprus|11950<br>S|Russia|2051<br>F|Mozambique|220|
|F|Neth. Antilles|11800<br>E|Thailand|2010<br>E|Malawi|180|

Legal origin legend: E– English Common Law; F– French Civil Law, G – German Civil Law; Sc – Scandinavian Civil Law; S – Socialist Law. Source for GNI – World Bank data.

# **ANNEX 2: The World Bank-Lex Mundi-Harvard University Project**

The Project involved implementing a survey to discover how courts work. The data systematically compare the pace of litigation by means of a standardized survey delivered to private law firms. The survey presents two hypothetical cases that represent typical situations of default of an everyday contract: (a) the eviction of a tenant; and (b) the collection of debt (a returned check or an invoice in countries where checks are not popular).

These two cases proxy for all types of commercial disputes that enter the courts. Two quite different cases are chosen in order to check whether the findings can be generalized to all civil litigation. The questions cover the step-by-step evolution of these cases before local courts in the country’s largest city. Importantly, the survey studies both the structure of the judicial system – that is, where the plaintiff would seek redress in specific cases – and the efficiency with which judicial decisions are made.

The survey chooses cases in which the facts are undisputed by the parties but where the defendant still does not want to pay. The judge consistently rules in favor of the plaintiff. In this way the survey controls for fairness across countries, as judges follow the letter of the law. We assume that no postjudgment motions can be filed. Should any opposition to the complaint arise, the judge always decides in favor of the plaintiff. The data consist of the number of steps required in the judicial process, the time it takes to accomplish each step, and the cost to the plaintiff. The last provides a comparable measure of access to the judicial system, while all three address the issue of judicial efficiency. The questionnaire makes a distinction between what is required by law and what happens in practice.

The following are examples of questions asked: What is the most commonly used mechanism for collecting overdue debt in your country? Does this mechanism differ if the debt amount is small, equal to 5 percent of GNP per capita, or large, equal to 50 percent of GNP per capita? What type of court will this mechanism be applied through? Would the judgment in the debt collection case be an oral representation of the general conclusions, an oral argument on specific facts and applicable laws, or a written argument on specific facts and applicable laws?

_Source_ : Lex Mundi, Harvard University, and World Bank. _World Development Report 2002_ background project.

# **ANNEX 3: Procedural Complexity**

Procedural complexity is approximated by an index of dispute resolution, which describes substantive and procedural statutory intervention in judicial cases at lower-level civil trial courts. The index covers seven broad categories of such regulation, as defined below: (1) the use of professional judges and lawyers as opposed to lay judges and self-representation, (2) the need to make written as opposed to oral arguments at various stages of the process, (3) the necessity of legal justification of various actions by either disputants or judges, (4) the regulation of evidence, (5) the nature of superior review of the first-instance judgment, (6) the presence of various statutory interventions during dispute resolution (such as service of process by a judicial officer), and (7) the count of the number of independent procedural actions required by law.<sup>38</sup>

> 38 Djankov, Simeon, Rafael La Porta, Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes, and Andrei Shleifer. 2003 and _World Development Report 2002 Background Paper_ , World Bank, 2001

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