CEPEJ report finds Republic of Ireland has lowest justice spend in Europe

A new report has identified a number of broad trends across judicial systems in 45 European countries. Among the findings of the eighth evaluation report drawn up by the Council of Europe’s European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ):

• European states spend an average of €72 per inhabitant per year on the legal system
• The number of female judges and prosecutors is continuing to increase, but the legal profession remains predominantly male
• On average there are now 164 lawyers per 100,000 inhabitants
• The number of courts decreased by 10% between 2010 and 2018
• Courts across Europe were able to continue functioning during the pandemic thanks to recent advances in Information Technology.

For the first time, the CEPEJ Evaluation Report contains country profiles which also allow the reader to situate his or her country in relation to other European countries.

This found the Republic of Ireland to have the lowest justice budget as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) of the 48 countries covered in the report. In 2018, the spend on courts, legal aid and prosecution in the Republic of Ireland was 0.1% of GDP, compared with a European average of 0.33%. Northern Ireland had one of the highest ratios in the report, at 0.45% of GDP.

The Republic of Ireland also ranked at the bottom in terms of judges per 100,000 population (3.3), ratio of women judges (below 40%) and ‘clearance rate’ for processing cases (63%).