Ms Mariam Zadoyan, expert of the “Multi-Faceted OGP Action: Open Justice & Anti-Corruption Commitments” project, presented the international standards raised as a result of analysis “Legal Structures of Judicial Statistics, including improvement of statistical data/indicators aimed at evaluating the efficiency and quality of the court’s (judges) activity, completion, collection, processing and publication procedures of statistics”.

The expert answered the questions of Iravaban.net.

– What methods were adopted during the development of the methodology of analysis?

– Desk review, within the framework of which the international standards for evaluation of court activity and judicial statistics were studied. In particular, the benchmarks of the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice, the International Framework of Court Excellence, the EU Justice Scoreboard, as well as the as well as the best practices of the EU countries, EaP countries, and other countries, such as the USA were studied. The RA legislation and law enforcement practice, including sector reports were also studied. Conducting 4 (four) focus group discussions with stakeholders, including relevant authorities, lawyers, representatives of specialized CSOs, legal and IT experts, aimed to raise sector issues. The results of the focus group discussions are summarized in the draft analysis.

Holding a high-level public-private dialogue format conference with stakeholders to present key findings and recommendations from the draft analysis. The results of the conference were summarized in the draft analysis as well. In the next few days it will be presented to the relevant bodies, and based on their observations/recommendations, the analysis will be summarized and published on the official website of the Armenian Lawyers’ Association (ALA).

– What is the objective/vision of the collection of statistical data?

– The study of international practice proves that different states pursue different goals when collecting statistical data. As a rule, the defined goals include ensuring the transparency and accountability of the courts.

At the same time, the international standards, which include the benchmarks of the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice, the International Framework of Court Excellence, the EU Justice Scoreboard, as well as the best international practices, are developing in the direction that statistics, if applied systematically and consciously, can pursue wider objectives, that is, to be an effective instrument for assessing, planning and implementing effective and efficient management of judicial activities/court performance.

– What are the main international standards for measuring the court performance?

– The performance of the courts can be measured by means of many standards, among which international guidelines distinguish the following three main directions:

• Efficiency as the ability to achieve a certain goal.
• Efficiency as the ability to achieve a certain goal by minimizing the use of resources.
• Quality: includes many aspects such as quality of judicial decisions, satisfaction of internal and external users, publicity, transparency, etc.

The independence of the judicial system can be distinguished within the framework of accepted standards as well. As a result, it becomes possible to set goals and targets, and according to them assess the progress of the judicial institution and to adopt appropriate actual policies in order to improve judicial activity, including more efficient and effective allocation of budgetary and human resources in relation to the workload of court cases and their complexity, monitoring of the quality of justice etc.

– At what level is the performance evaluation of the judicial system carried out according to international standards?

– Here it is necessary to emphasize that the measurement and evaluation of performance in the judicial system can be carried out at different levels:

• Domestic level,  looking at the judiciary as a whole,
• level of courts,
• Individual level, namely the judges.

– What are the international standards for collecting judicial flows?

– According to the standards of the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice, the following data should be available regarding the number of proceedings (cases) examined by the courts:

• The number of pending cases at the beginning of the reporting period; such as a calendar year.
• The number of new (incoming) cases during the reporting period; including newly registered cases and cases returned for review, that is, cases that have already been submitted to the court of the same instance and need to be reviewed (for example, after an appeal).
• The number of resolved (completed) cases in the reporting period; This includes all cases that were heard by the court and completed during the reporting period, either by a judicial act resolving the case on its merits, or by some other decision that completed the proceedings (for example, dismissal on formal grounds, abandonment of the claim or an amicable conclusion of an agreement. The data on the completed proceedings can be divided according to the outcome of the proceedings. At least, it is necessary to distinguish cases concluded by a judicial act resolving the case on its merits from cases concluded otherwise.
• The number of pending/unfinished cases at the end of the reporting period;  It is calculated by the following formula:

Number of pending/unfinished cases at the end of the reporting period  =

number of pending/unfinished cases at the beginning of the reporting period  + 

number of new (incoming) cases in the reporting period  –

number of resolved (completed) cases during the reporting period.

Data on the number of proceedings (cases) examined by the courts should be collected according to Table 1. The table also provides column 5, which provides data as of 31 December of the reporting year on the number of pending/unfinished cases that are pending for more than 2 years. This is due to the fact that 2 years, according to the practice of the European Court of Human Rights, as a rule, is the threshold of a reasonable period for investigation.

Table 1: Court case flows by courts

– What are the international standards for Key Performance Indicators (KPI)?

– The guidelines of the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice, the International Framework of Court Excellence and the EU Justice Scoreboard define dozens of coefficients and formulas to measure the performance of the judicial system through the prism of efficiency, effectiveness, quality and other standards.

The European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice attaches particular importance to the following two formulas:

• The Clearance Rate, henceforth CR, is the ratio between the number of new (incoming) cases in the reporting period and the number of cases resolved in the same period, expressed as a percentage. CR is calculated with the following coefficient:

For example, in case where 500 new cases were brought to the court in a calendar year and the court resolved 550 cases at the same time, then the LG is 110%. If the court has resolved 400 cases, the LG would be 80%. An LG above 100% means that the number of pending cases is decreasing, and an LG significantly below 100% is a sign of deterioration, as this means that the number of pending cases is progressively increasing.

• Disposition time,  is the ratio of the number of unfinished cases at the end of the reporting period and the number of cases resolved in the same period (by days). The Disposition time measures the estimated time needed to resolve pending cases, taking into account the current rate of work, that is, how long it takes to resolve cases of a specific type. Therefore, it is also useful for assessing court efficiency, in particular, for the assessment of the court’s management of the flow of court cases under its proceedings, taking into account the benchmark dates of the average duration of the cases.

The Disposition Time is calculated by the following factor:

Among the standards of the main indicators of performance by the International Framework of Court Excellence, we can distinguish the following:

• Cases by Judge (CJ) is the ratio (average) of the number of cases resolved in each classification to the number of judges working on cases in that classification. It provides an overview of the efficiency of human resource of a given court (in a given case of judges).

It is calculated by the following formula:

• Satisfaction of Court Users:  The percentage of court users who believe that the court provides procedural justice, i.e. accessible, fair, accurate, timely, competent and courteous court services. It is an effective tool for carrying out surveys of the experiences of court users. It allows analysis by the court location, division, user type, and different types and levels of courts and tribunals.

This publication was prepared by the “Armenian Lawyers’ Association” NGO in cooperation with CSO Anti-Corruption Coalition of Armenia within the framework of the “Multi-Faceted OGP Action: Open Justice & Anti-Corruption Commitments” project implemented with the support of the Open Government Partnership (OGP), in the framework of the European Union funded “EU for Integrity Programme for the Eastern Partnership” Action.

The publication expresses the position of the author, the ALA, which does not necessarily coincide with the position of the OGP and the EU.