Economic aspects of the judiciary

Abstract

The timeliness and predictability of the judiciary play an important role in the economic system as a whole by reducing uncertainty for market actors. Unfortunately, due to the indirect nature of its impact on economic development and the difficulty in estimating the 'return on investment' of the judiciary, this issue is still not sufficiently emphasised in mainstream discussions to date. This article presents selected economic aspects of the judiciary, reflecting on its effectiveness in European countries, in particular Poland. The efficiency of the Polish justice system is quite adequate to the resources spent on it. In particular, the overall functioning of the criminal system and the relatively low costs of proceedings, combined with a high recovery rate for civil and commercial cases, deserve high praise. However, the Polish civil and commercial justice system is still in need of certain reforms. These include solutions related to the automation and digitisation of courts and the development of alternative, conciliatory methods of dispute resolution - which so far handle a negligible percentage of all proceedings. These solutions could significantly improve the quality of the Polish judiciary, contributing to a decrease in the expected disposition time, which has increased significantly over the last decade.