Duration of Legal Proceedings in Germany

Tasks

This project focuses on how German codes of legal proceedings give rise to potentially long delays in concluding legal proceedings.

Methods

As part of this research, data is compiled to describe the current situation in German courts, including the number of concluded proceedings per year, the average duration of proceedings and the share of appeals.

Data and other Sources

Federal Statistical Office, State Administrations of Justice.

Results

The study: “Evaluation of the efficiency of court proceedings in Germany” examines the efficiency of German district courts in civil law. To measure the efficiency of the legal system the settlement rate, i.e. the number of cases pending as a share of all cases filed, and the time taken to settle these cases are used as key benchmarks.

By European comparison the German legal system performs well in terms of its efficiency in civil and commercial matters. In 2012, for example, the settlement rate of 66.6 percent was higher than the average figure of 59.7 percent, while the average case duration of 6.1 months was well below the European average of 9.3 months. However, Germany is not among the frontrunners in any of the efficiency indicators analysed. Countries like Luxemburg, Austria, Denmark and Sweden have higher settlement rates, shorter case duration periods and fewer cases pending at the end of the year.

Within Germany the number of new cases related to civil matters filed annually fell from 1.4 million to 1.1 million between 2002 and 2014. Despite the falling number of new cases, the number of cases pending at the end of the year remained relatively constant and totalled 490,516 at the end of 2014. The overall settlement rate in Germany fluctuated between 72.5 percent in 2005 and 69.3 percent in 2014. The average settlement duration of cases rose slightly.

The average efficiency of the legal system in individual German states differs significantly in some cases. The number of cases settled by the end of the year per inhabitant is higher in the city states than in the rural states. Bavaria has one of the highest settlement rates at 72.7 percent, followed by Baden-Württemberg at 71.9 percent, and Hamburg at 70.7 percent. Thuringia has one of the lowest settlement rates at 63.5 percent, followed by Bremen at 64.7 percent and Mecklenburg Western Pomerania at 66 percent. Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria (4.1 months respectively) and Berlin (4.6 months) boast the shortest average settlement duration. The longest average settlement duration rates are seen in Thuringia with 6.1 months, Bremen with 5.7 months and the Saarland with 5.6 months.

We also analysed the efficiency at the next lower level i.e. at individual district courts in 13 German states, which provided data for the years 2011–2014. This revealed differences in the settlement rates and case durations between and within individual German states. The differences between courts in Thuringia, for example, were greater than between courts in Bremen.

Publication (in German)

Potrafke, Niklas, Markus Reischmann, Marina Riem and Christoph Schinke, Evaluierung der Effizienz von Gerichtsverfahren in Deutschland, ifo Institut, München, 2017, 43 | PDF Download

Press Echo

Niklas Potrafke, Marina Riem, Christoph Schinke, Wirtschaftsfaktor Justiz – so gut arbeiten unsere Gerichte | Apr 7, 2017 | Press article