Civil justice in Italy, length of proceedings, productivity of the courts and stability of judgments

Based on the new data available, the paper (i) provides a more detailed assessment of the performance of civil courts than in the past and (ii) examines the territorial gaps and the role of supply and demand factors in explaining the heterogeneities observed. The analysis confirms significant differences in the length of the proceedings, in particular between the South and the Center-North of Italy. The supply and demand factors considered account for more than half of these differences. Courts where proceedings last longer on average (and where there is a greater number of pending proceedings) are characterized by low productivity, in some cases, and, in others, by an imbalance between human resources and workflows, suggesting the need to tailor policy interventions to the different situations of the courts. Conversely, no differences are observed between these two macro regions in the appeal and reform rates of judgments and there is no correlation between these variables and the length of the proceedings, suggesting the absence of trade-offs between speed of proceedings and accuracy and stability of judgements.