Speed up judicial process through better cooperation between courts
People and business sometimes have to wait quite a while for a ruling, time spent in insecurity. The cabinet wants to tackle this issue, for instance by making extra money available during last year's Budget Memorandum, and by facilitating mutual cooperation within the justice system going forward. The proposal by Minister for Legal Protection Sander Dekker, which would make it easier for courts to aid each other with temporary shortages in session capacity, has been submitted to the House of Representatives.
Dekker:
'When people have to wait long periods of time for a ruling, such as in a divorce or in the case of debt, their life comes to a standstill. That is why it's important that courts can eliminate their backlogs and prevent longer processing times. This law will help improve the situation.'
Administrative burdens can obstruct the quick and efficient transfer of cases from one court to the other. By removing these obstructions, it will be easier for a court with a temporary capacity problem to handle a case at the location of another court. The advantage is that these cases will not have to be transferred, as is now the case.
There will also be a structural legal provision for the four so-called focused courts (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Oost-Brabant and Overijssel), where specialised criminal cases from the National Public Prosecutors' Office and the National Office for Serious Fraud, Environmental Crime and Asset Confiscation are handled. These include cases on returning jihadis and the financing of terrorism, for instance.
It is not always possible to predict when such cases will present themselves, but the nature of these cases means that it is important that there are no delays in their handling. By appointing all session capacity of these courts for these cases as session capacity for the other focused courts, it will be easier for these courts to quickly and flexibly solve capacity problems among themselves.