The government has reached an agreement with all parliamentary parties to invest 2.3 billion DKK in the justice system between 2024 and 2027. Why? Not enough courtrooms and judges, increased case processing time, and an old IT system.
- The money will be used to hire more judges, court lawyers, and office clerks. Also, for new courtrooms and updates to the IT system.
- Together with the money, the bureaucracy behind the justice system has been simplified in order to speed up the case processing time.
- To mention a few of the simplifications – you can get up to one year of prison time in absence (if you fail to appear at the trial); if you don’t appear at the court when summoned in relation to a fine trial, it will be considered an admission of guilt. You can see all the changes here.
- There is criticism from legal experts that, in pursuit of efficiency, they are sacrificing important principles of legal certainty. For example, cases under 100,000 DKK will be considered “small” and will be processed without a lawyer present. (before the limit was 50,000 DKK). Also, to appeal a civil case at the higher court, it needs to have a minimum value of 50,000 DKK (the limit before was 20,000 DKK).
