Court Funding: New Approaches in Russia and Foreign Countries

Abstract

The growing workload on the courts both in Russia and in foreign countries actualizes the issue of allocating sufficient financial resources to the courts to deal with the growing volume of cases. There is a growing need for an adequate budget for the workload of the courts, considered not only as a financial instrument, but also as a guarantee of the independence of courts and judges. The subject of the work was the problem of court financing, which provides sufficient resources for the administration of justice in full, the definition of a court budgeting model corresponding to the modern period. The author comes to the conclusion that the procedure for financing the courts, fixed by law, as not related to the workload and results of the activities of the courts, cannot be considered a tool for the further development of the Russian judicial system. The transition to a different technology for the formation of the budget of the courts is substantiated, focusing on the efficiency and results of their work. The purpose of the article is to develop theoretical provisions on the financing of courts, including the sufficiency criteria and features of planning the budget of the judiciary, using the proven experience of financing courts in foreign countries, as well as formulating, on this basis, proposals for improving the current Russian legislation. The article analyzes the varieties of the resultoriented budgeting model operating in the Netherlands, Finland and France, which differ in the degree of obligation for the formation of the budget of information on the results of the work of the courts. It was revealed that the basis for planning the budget of courts is information about their workload, calculated according to the methodology for calculating the weighted average complexity of cases. The limitation of the application of traditional ideas about productivity and efficiency as economic categories to judicial activity, the quality of which cannot be described by simple quantitative indicators of cases considered, is argued. The values of justice set the objective limits of productivity, and the norms of the workload of judges and court staff, fixed by law, will make it possible to correct the excessive workload of the courts and determine the necessary resources for proper justice, including staff units and financial allocations.