The Supply and Demand of Justice: What Policy Implications from the EU Justice Scoreboard?

What is the right price for adjudication? The influence of prices in determining access to justice makes this question all the more problematic, as the free interaction between supply and demand for judicial services has notoriously a limited role in this area due to the pervasive role of state-determined tariffs. Fixing prices at too low a level is an easy way to satisfy the need for justice, but it may come at the cost of overlitigation, which squanders resources. Fixing prices at too high a level is an easy way to make justice quicker, but it may neglect the costs of reducing access to justice. Using the EU Justice Scoreboard – a unique policy instrument to measure the performance of EU national justice systems – the paper explores how the European Commission understands the role of adjudication costs. In so doing, it highlights how this tool addresses access to justice from an economic point of view. The paper’s findings show that the Scoreboard’s reporting on costs has evolved gradually. It shifted away from generic considerations on government expenditure (which involve a supply-side analysis) to adopt qualitative evaluations on the allocation of resources for litigants (which involve a demand-side analysis). Based on this interpretation, the paper critically assesses the value judgements underpinning the EU Justice Scoreboard and submits some observations on its nature and function as a policy tool.