“French justice has resources greater than the European median, but remains less efficient”

Lhe report of the Estates General of Justice – known as the Sauvé report – submitted on July 8 to the President of the Republic calls for a substantial increase in the means of justice and reports chronic under-investment. However, this same report notes that France is above the European median for court expenditure in relation to the gross domestic product or the number of inhabitants, according to the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (Cepej).

At the same time, France has a case processing time well above the European median and the Cepej is alarmed by the insufficient efficiency of our judicial system. Means higher than the median but a justice more inefficient than the others: one could not say in a more convincing way that our justice does not suffer only from an insufficiency of means.

However, French civil justice is not idle. More than one million cases were handled in 2020 before the courts of first instance. Although the French civil judge has become a particularly prolific author, he does not manage to cope with the inexhaustible stocks of cases introduced.

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But wouldn’t the difficulties encountered by French civil justice be precisely linked to this mass production of judgments?

In England, only 5% of the cases referred to the civil judge are the subject of a judgment, according to a recent study carried out by the magistrate Michaël Haravon. The rest, ie the overwhelming majority, is settled before any judgment. The judge then only has to judge the few cases for which no agreement could be reached between the parties.

Promote amicable settlement

In France, these are approximately 70% of civil cases that give rise to a judgment, according to statistics from the Ministry of Justice, not to mention the countless appeals before the courts of appeal or the Court of Cassation. Thus, for 14,076 decisions in civil matters rendered in 2020 by the Court of Cassation in France, its counterpart the British Supreme Court rendered a total of 54 decisions, all matters combined, including criminal ones. The deadlines, because of these innumerable appeals, explode.

The choice made by British justice to promote the amicable settlement of disputes allows for a faster and better accepted settlement of the dispute. At the same time, the judge has more time and more resources to deal with cases presenting real legal complexity.

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