Adriani Dori | Erasmus University Rotterdam (original) (raw)
Papers by Adriani Dori
Erasmus Law Review, 2021
Affordable and timely judicial proceedings by independent courts are essential for an effective j... more Affordable and timely judicial proceedings by independent courts are essential for an effective justice system. They are also a precondition for the protection of the rule of law in the EU and for an integrated internal market. Among the tools the European Commission adopts in this field, the EU Justice Scoreboard is key to understanding the empirical basis of the European judicial policies. Created in 2013, it provides annual data on efficiency, quality and independence of member states' courts. The Scoreboard considers costly judicial proceedings as an obstacle to access to justice. It accordingly benchmarks member states' performance with various indicators. In the Commission's view, different national legal traditions should not prevent comparative assessment of member state judicial systems. However, the idiosyncrasies of national systems and the heterogeneity of national judicial statistics inevitably affect this empirical monitoring exercise. A closer look at the Scoreboard data shows that adjudication costs cannot be evaluated through quantitative metrics without contextualisation. This article focuses on the Scoreboard data on judicial costs, from both the supply and the demand side of judicial services. It critically reviews the fact-finding process that supports the preparation of the Scoreboard as well as the data this document displays. In so doing, it tests whether the Scoreboard conveys reliable and comparable information. This analysis is all the more important as the Scoreboard often supports academic analyses on the performance of justice and policy proposals by regulators and lawmakers.
The highly anticipated hearing in the Celmer case took place on 1 June 2018 before the Grand Cham... more The highly anticipated hearing in the Celmer case took place on 1 June 2018 before the Grand Chamber of the ECJ. The stakes are undoubtedly high. On the one hand, the efficiency of the European Arrest Warrant mechanism is clearly at risk — a risk which could lead to broader consequences for the whole architecture of mutual trust and recognition. On the other hand, the Celmer dispute goes to the heart of the problems surrounding the current Polish judicial reforms, and to the ensuing concerns about judicial independence. Taking into account the present negotiations between the Polish government and the Commission, Celmer is unquestionably both political and delicate in the extreme.
The European Union’s Area of Freedom, Security and Justice has been created to ensure the free mo... more The European Union’s Area of Freedom, Security and Justice has been created to ensure the free movement of persons and to offer a high level of protection to citizens. Within this framework, the Commission has undertaken a broad range of actions regarding cross-border disputes, which range from the service of documents to the collection of evidence, as well as from a unified set of conflict of law rules to legal aid guidelines and promotion of ADR schemes. Next to hard law instruments (Regulations and Directives) additional operational measures have been adopted to support the cooperation between judicial authorities through new technologies, e-justice, judicial networks, benchmarking and monitoring of national judicial systems. The ultimate purpose of all of these efforts is the elimination of barriers in cross-border litigation.
However, given the limited competence of the Commission, sovereign-sensitive questions on litigation costs have been addressed at the European level only indirectly and through sectorial solutions, such as mutual recognition of judgements with minimum standards and limited grounds for rejection, standardised forms and pre-defined deadlines, as well as through the recently-designed simplified European procedures, which however have a narrow scope. Despite these EU interventions, Member Stares retain the monopoly of the regulation of the market of judicial and legal services in accordance with their own policies and objectives. As a result, litigation costs are not harmonised at the European level.
The purpose of this paper is to assess how this lack of harmonisation of litigation costs represents a real obstacle for citizens that are involved in cross-border disputes. The paper is divided into two parts. In the first part, we provide, through a stock-taking of the existent literature, the theoretical background of our research, and we analyse the different models for regulating litigation costs at the national level. Our comparison reveals that not only does pluralism exist, but the diversities across jurisdictions reflect conscious governmental choices in policy making that are deeply ingrained in the social, political and economic context of a State. The second part of the paper focuses on a more practical analysis at a European level. Following the development of a cross border dispute we track down in chronological order the most typical expenditures generated in cross border litigation and we examine how the regulatory issues affecting those costs have been tackled by the European legislator.
The variety of costs in a cross border context together with the diversities of their regulation at the national level shows that the EU action in this area is at present insufficient to guarantee a homogenous legal environment for litigants. At the same time, the complexity of these issues raises some questions on the most appropriate policies in this field regarding costs and their allocation.
The EU Justice Scoreboard is the Commission’s latest initiative to evaluate Member States’ justic... more The EU Justice Scoreboard is the Commission’s latest initiative to evaluate Member States’ justice systems. The paper explores the features of the Justice Scoreboard, the reasoning behind its creation, as well as its methodology and data sources. Although the Scoreboard was initially conceived as a non-binding tool comparing data on national courts’ performance in civil and commercial matters, a deeper analysis reveals that it goes beyond a simple monitoring and evaluating exercise. With its overemphasised economic focus and its strong policy dimension the Scoreboard is rather a governance mechanism that pushes for specific reforms in Member States. At the same time, the Scoreboard marks a transition from supranational harmonization to softer methods of policy coordination through monitoring and evaluation. Although it is still too early to evaluate whether this transition anticipates a paradigm shift in the Commission’s policy towards EU Justice, the Scoreboard (after some commendable improvements in methodology and data presentation) holds a remarkable unexpressed potential for the future and could work as a basis for experimenting with new governance tools in the area of EU Justice.
Talks by Adriani Dori
A holistic assessment of the EU Justice Scoreboard throughout all its editions reveals an undergo... more A holistic assessment of the EU Justice Scoreboard throughout all its editions reveals an undergoing metamorphosis from a non-binding descriptive tool to a more powerful governance instrument. As a consequence, the Scoreboard has multiple spillover effects within and outside of the European Area of Freedom, Security and Justice. Ergo, the question arising is if the quality of the data provided justifies this transformation and the growing importance of the instrument for the future. A thorough analysis of the Scoreboard casts doubt on this.
Erasmus Law Review, 2021
Affordable and timely judicial proceedings by independent courts are essential for an effective j... more Affordable and timely judicial proceedings by independent courts are essential for an effective justice system. They are also a precondition for the protection of the rule of law in the EU and for an integrated internal market. Among the tools the European Commission adopts in this field, the EU Justice Scoreboard is key to understanding the empirical basis of the European judicial policies. Created in 2013, it provides annual data on efficiency, quality and independence of member states' courts. The Scoreboard considers costly judicial proceedings as an obstacle to access to justice. It accordingly benchmarks member states' performance with various indicators. In the Commission's view, different national legal traditions should not prevent comparative assessment of member state judicial systems. However, the idiosyncrasies of national systems and the heterogeneity of national judicial statistics inevitably affect this empirical monitoring exercise. A closer look at the Scoreboard data shows that adjudication costs cannot be evaluated through quantitative metrics without contextualisation. This article focuses on the Scoreboard data on judicial costs, from both the supply and the demand side of judicial services. It critically reviews the fact-finding process that supports the preparation of the Scoreboard as well as the data this document displays. In so doing, it tests whether the Scoreboard conveys reliable and comparable information. This analysis is all the more important as the Scoreboard often supports academic analyses on the performance of justice and policy proposals by regulators and lawmakers.
The highly anticipated hearing in the Celmer case took place on 1 June 2018 before the Grand Cham... more The highly anticipated hearing in the Celmer case took place on 1 June 2018 before the Grand Chamber of the ECJ. The stakes are undoubtedly high. On the one hand, the efficiency of the European Arrest Warrant mechanism is clearly at risk — a risk which could lead to broader consequences for the whole architecture of mutual trust and recognition. On the other hand, the Celmer dispute goes to the heart of the problems surrounding the current Polish judicial reforms, and to the ensuing concerns about judicial independence. Taking into account the present negotiations between the Polish government and the Commission, Celmer is unquestionably both political and delicate in the extreme.
The European Union’s Area of Freedom, Security and Justice has been created to ensure the free mo... more The European Union’s Area of Freedom, Security and Justice has been created to ensure the free movement of persons and to offer a high level of protection to citizens. Within this framework, the Commission has undertaken a broad range of actions regarding cross-border disputes, which range from the service of documents to the collection of evidence, as well as from a unified set of conflict of law rules to legal aid guidelines and promotion of ADR schemes. Next to hard law instruments (Regulations and Directives) additional operational measures have been adopted to support the cooperation between judicial authorities through new technologies, e-justice, judicial networks, benchmarking and monitoring of national judicial systems. The ultimate purpose of all of these efforts is the elimination of barriers in cross-border litigation.
However, given the limited competence of the Commission, sovereign-sensitive questions on litigation costs have been addressed at the European level only indirectly and through sectorial solutions, such as mutual recognition of judgements with minimum standards and limited grounds for rejection, standardised forms and pre-defined deadlines, as well as through the recently-designed simplified European procedures, which however have a narrow scope. Despite these EU interventions, Member Stares retain the monopoly of the regulation of the market of judicial and legal services in accordance with their own policies and objectives. As a result, litigation costs are not harmonised at the European level.
The purpose of this paper is to assess how this lack of harmonisation of litigation costs represents a real obstacle for citizens that are involved in cross-border disputes. The paper is divided into two parts. In the first part, we provide, through a stock-taking of the existent literature, the theoretical background of our research, and we analyse the different models for regulating litigation costs at the national level. Our comparison reveals that not only does pluralism exist, but the diversities across jurisdictions reflect conscious governmental choices in policy making that are deeply ingrained in the social, political and economic context of a State. The second part of the paper focuses on a more practical analysis at a European level. Following the development of a cross border dispute we track down in chronological order the most typical expenditures generated in cross border litigation and we examine how the regulatory issues affecting those costs have been tackled by the European legislator.
The variety of costs in a cross border context together with the diversities of their regulation at the national level shows that the EU action in this area is at present insufficient to guarantee a homogenous legal environment for litigants. At the same time, the complexity of these issues raises some questions on the most appropriate policies in this field regarding costs and their allocation.
The EU Justice Scoreboard is the Commission’s latest initiative to evaluate Member States’ justic... more The EU Justice Scoreboard is the Commission’s latest initiative to evaluate Member States’ justice systems. The paper explores the features of the Justice Scoreboard, the reasoning behind its creation, as well as its methodology and data sources. Although the Scoreboard was initially conceived as a non-binding tool comparing data on national courts’ performance in civil and commercial matters, a deeper analysis reveals that it goes beyond a simple monitoring and evaluating exercise. With its overemphasised economic focus and its strong policy dimension the Scoreboard is rather a governance mechanism that pushes for specific reforms in Member States. At the same time, the Scoreboard marks a transition from supranational harmonization to softer methods of policy coordination through monitoring and evaluation. Although it is still too early to evaluate whether this transition anticipates a paradigm shift in the Commission’s policy towards EU Justice, the Scoreboard (after some commendable improvements in methodology and data presentation) holds a remarkable unexpressed potential for the future and could work as a basis for experimenting with new governance tools in the area of EU Justice.
A holistic assessment of the EU Justice Scoreboard throughout all its editions reveals an undergo... more A holistic assessment of the EU Justice Scoreboard throughout all its editions reveals an undergoing metamorphosis from a non-binding descriptive tool to a more powerful governance instrument. As a consequence, the Scoreboard has multiple spillover effects within and outside of the European Area of Freedom, Security and Justice. Ergo, the question arising is if the quality of the data provided justifies this transformation and the growing importance of the instrument for the future. A thorough analysis of the Scoreboard casts doubt on this.