More shortened court proceedings? The head of the Judges Union warns that this could harm the poor

NSThe average length of civil proceedings before a county or county court last year was 281 days, and in criminal cases it was 201 days before a county or county court. Wouldn’t it be faster?

I think we’re starting to overestimate the speed. In civil affairs, we are the sixth fastest country in Europe. And what else are we in sixth place among the most developed countries? It’s a huge success, and we’re still waiting for the biggest changes. I think if we adopted more modern procedural rules, the procedures could be faster.

Otherwise, we’ve come to the edge of common sense. The shorter the length of the procedures, the more difficult it is for the poor to obtain legal advice. If you are a very wealthy person, your law firm will start operating as soon as you name it. For someone who has difficulty navigating, it takes several weeks to figure out where to go before picking them up State paid attorney. For many people, speed is annoying and represents a degree of unfairness.

So you think default will be counterproductive.

There are entire agendas that need to be shortened, even aggressively, but talking about them as a single target is dangerous, and in some cases can provoke injustice.

What are the agendas that need to be shortened?

Now, for example, something huge has worked: after years of resistance Parliament has approved the proposal of the Ministry of Justice to conclude agreements on guilt and punishment even for the most serious crimes. And suddenly you see that it was worthwhile for a number of defendants to make an agreement, and instead of several months of trials, we have half-day negotiations between the prosecutor and the defense.

You can listen to the full interview with Libor Vavra, president of the Judicial Union, from the recording.