Abstract
This chapter focuses on the ‘court reform’ in Poland, in particular the restoration of the so-called small courts in 2015. Previously most of such courts were merged into larger entities, but due to the political pressure, they have been restored. The aim of such restoration was to improve access to courts for residents of rural and small-town areas. Using a two-stage test procedure combining non-parametric Data Envelopment Analysis and Tobit regression, we observe that the change was associated with a decrease in the efficiency of those larger courts from which the new courts were separated. It appears that the reintroduction of the small courts was not driven by efficiency but by political considerations.
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Notes
- 1.
The reform was ordered by the Minister of Justice in 2014. The changes came into force a year later, which is why we refer to it as the “2015 court reform”.
- 2.
Source: own calculations based on the data provided by the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Poland.
- 3.
Source: own calculations based on the data provided by the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Poland.
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Dąbroś, Ł., Bełdowski, J., Baum, I. (2024). Accessibility Versus Efficiency in the Judiciary: Evidence from the Polish Court Reforms. In: Mathis, K., Tor, A. (eds) Law and Economics of Justice. ILEC 2023. Economic Analysis of Law in European Legal Scholarship, vol 17. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-56822-0_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-56822-0_10
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