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STRUCTURAL ISSUES FOR

FRANCE

OCTOBER 2021

PUBLIC ENTITIES AND POLICIES

IMPROVING THE

MANAGEMENT OF THE

PUBLIC JUSTICE SERVICE

COURT OF AUDITORS

CONTENTS

WARNING

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

INTRODUCTION

1 - THE MAP OF THE COURTS OF APPEAL, A REFORM

POSTPONED FOR TOO LONG

A - Weakened courts of appeal

B - A redesign of the map of the courts of appeal is

needed

2 - ALLOCATING RESOURCES BASED ON REASONED

FINDINGS

TO - An increase in budgets that is not reflected in

the results, especially judgment times

B - The adoption of a resource allocation

framework is essential

3 - DIGITAL, AN INSTRUMENT FOR TRANSFORMING

JUSTICE

A - An extremely ambitious plan

B - Maintaining the integrity and priorities of the

ministry’s digital strategy

VS - Anticipating changes in the professions

CONCLUSION

REFERENCES TO THE WORK OF THE COURT OF

AUDITORS

COURT OF AUDITORS

This memorandum is part of a body of work intended to present the main

challenges in several major public policies that public decision-makers

will face in the coming years and the levers that could help to overcome

them. This series of publications, running from October to December 2021,

follows on from the report submitted in June 2021 to the President of

the Republic,

A public finance strategy for exiting the crisis.

This summary

report aims to develop diagnoses of a few essential structural issues

resulting from previous work of the Court and actions that can be used to

consolidate long-term growth while strengthening the equity, effectiveness

and efficiency of public policies.

In accordance with its constitutional mission of informing citizens, the

Court wished to develop a new approach, differing from its usual work,

and through this series of deliberately very summarised and targeted

memoranda make a contribution to the public debate, while ensuring all

possible routes for reform are left open.

This memorandum was deliberated by the 4

chamber and approved by

the publication and planning committee of the Court of Auditors.

The publications of the Court of Auditors are accessible online on the

website of the Court and the regional and territorial courts of auditors:

www.ccomptes.fr

NOTICE

COURT OF AUDITORS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

For several years, the judiciary has benefited from developments intended to

improve the response provided to citizens. Since 2012, it has seen an increase in its

budget (+22% budget voted in LFI between 2011 and 2021). In addition, in recent

years many reforms have contributed to lightening the work of the judge. However,

the processing times for civil cases are lengthening and the backlog of pending

cases is increasing. The health crisis has highlighted the difficulties faced by the

ministry of justice in ensuring the continuity of its activity. There are difficulties in

implementing the many changes brought about by the justice programming law

for the years 2018-2022. These findings highlight the need to respond immediately

to the structural weaknesses highlighted by the Court in its recent audits. Justice

now needs better management rather than reform.

There are three priorities in the short term. Firstly, the map of the courts of

appeal, based on an old geographical division which does not coincide with the

administrative regions, should be reformed to avoid maintaining an excessively

high number of courts, of insufficient size, and to improve their ability to constitute

credible partners in the eyes of other administrations and optimise practice of their

management responsibilities. The justice system also needs tools for assessing the

workload and distribution of staff adapted to its requirements; this reform is all

the more necessary in a context of unprecedented increases in justice budgets and

measures to reduce the judge’s work. Finally, the ministry of justice must catch up

the considerable delay it has accumulated in digital matters: insufficient hardware,

old software, low level of protection of information systems. The success of the

ambitious digital transformation plan adopted in 2019 will depend on the ability

of the ministry to maintain consistent priorities beyond the cyclical reforms and to

support professionals in the changes in their profession induced by digital changes.

Key figures

•

+22%

increase of the justice budget between

2011

and

2021

(voted

in the initial finance act - LFI)

•

Civil case processing times: between

and

18 months

depending

on the jurisdiction

•

Civil cases backlog at the end of 2019:

1.8 million

IMPROVING THE MANAGEMENT OF THE PUBLIC JUSTICE SERVICE

IMPROVING THE MANAGEMENT

OF THE PUBLIC JUSTICE SERVICE

IMPROVING THE MANAGEMENT

OF THE PUBLIC JUSTICE SERVICE

Better allocation of resources

to be more efficient

Successful digital

transformation project

Tackling the reform

of the courts of

appeal map

COURT OF AUDITORS

INTRODUCTION

For several years, the judiciary has benefited from developments intended to

improve the response provided to citizens. Since 2012, the “justice” budget has

been increased (+27% of budget voted in LFI between 2011 and 2021, +22% for the

judiciary), with a particularly significant turnaround in 2021 (budget voted in LFI

up by over 6.5% compared to the LFI 2020); continuation of this increase has been

announced for 2022. In recent years many reforms have contributed to lightening

the work of the judge, in particular by simplifying family law or the diversion of

many cases such as divorce by mutual consent.

However, the processing times for civil cases are lengthening and the backlog

of pending cases is increasing. In addition, the health crisis linked to the Covid-

19 epidemic highlighted the difficulties of the Ministry of Justice in ensuring the

continuity of its activity, which was very much reduced during the first lockdown.

These findings underline the need to respond immediately to the structural

management weaknesses of the ministry of justice as highlighted by the Court in

its recent audits. The judiciary does not have management tools to allocate human

resources in line with its needs. The limits of its information system compromise

the quality of the service and do not allow collection of the data essential to

monitor its activity properly. The judicial map, based on historical choices that have

only been partially called into question, leads to scattered resources and makes

management complex.

It is particularly important to pay attention to management as the judicial system

must implement numerous reforms (law of 16 February 2015 on the modernisation

and simplification of the law and procedures in the field of justice and internal

affairs, law of 18 November 2016 on the modernisation of the XXI justice

century,

law of 23 March 2019 on 2018-2022 programming and justice reform, law of 24

December 2020 on the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, environmental justice

and specialised criminal justice), concerning criminal and civil justice and with an

impact on the conditions for practising the professions, modifying organisational

structures such as relations with partners (internal security forces, lawyers,

notaries, etc.). As the Ministry of Justice is unable to improve its organisation

and allocate resources in line with the real needs of the courts, the pace of these

reforms contributes to the increase in case processing times, as highlighted by the

testimonies collected by the Court from the court officials.

The Court believes that, at the end of a cycle of audits of the various administrative

functions of the justice system, it needs better management rather than reform.

IMPROVING THE MANAGEMENT OF THE PUBLIC JUSTICE SERVICE

If the Ministry of Justice does not equip itself with the tools to properly organise

judicial activity the reforms will be in vain, despite budget and staff increases.

Certain improvements now seem essential, such as adapting the map of the

courts of appeal, reviewing the organisation of work on the basis of an objective

assessment of needs and closing the digital gap. Between 2018 and 2021, the

Court made recommendations on these various points which are stated below.

Without ignoring the uniqueness of 2020, marked by the lawyers’ strike followed by

the health crisis, the inability of the courts to ensure the continuity of activity under

satisfactory conditions during the Covid-19 epidemic confirms that management

issues must be put at the top of the ministry’s agenda.

COURT OF AUDITORS

1 - THE MAP OF THE COURTS OF APPEAL, A REFORM POSTPONED

FOR TOO LONG

The map of the courts of appeal, based on a

geographical division with foundations dating

back to before the French revolution, has not

been adapted, despite the 2008 and 2020

reforms of courts of first instance and the

reorganisation of the central government

services. Working in isolation, often

insufficient in size to constitute a credible

partner in the eyes of other administrations,

the current organisation of the courts of

appeal unnecessarily complicates the proper

functioning of the public justice systems.

A - Weakened courts of appeal

1 - Geographical isolation, sometimes

insufficient size

The distribution of the thirty-six courts of

appeal contributes to keeping them within

overly narrow perimeters and isolating them

from their immediate environment because

their jurisdictions do not coincide either with

the territories of the thirteen new adminis-

trative regions of metropolitan France, nor

with the networks of the decentralised prison

administration and youth judicial protection

IMPROVING THE MANAGEMENT OF THE PUBLIC JUSTICE SERVICE

Source: Ministry of Justice

Morbihan

Côtes-d'Armor

Finistère

Mayenne

Loire-Atlantique

Ille-et-Vilaine

Calvados

Manche

Hautes-Pyrénées

Gironde

Landes

Pyrénées-Atlantiques

Lot-et-Garonne

Gers

Charente-Maritime

Maine-et-Loire

Charente

Deux-Sèvres

Dordogne

Vendée

Vienne

Indre-et-Loire

Loir-et-Cher

Haute-Vienne

Eure

Orne

Sarthe

Eure-et-Loir

Seine-Maritime

Ariège

Haute-Garonne

Lot

Tarn-et-Garonne

Cher

Loiret

Indre

Creuse

Cantal

Pyrénées-Orientales

Aude

Aveyron

Corrèze

Oise

Somme

Nord

Pas-de-Calais

Aisne

Marne

Haute-Loire

Hérault

Ardèche

Lozère

Gard

Nièvre

Yonne

Allier

Puy-de-Dôme

Rhône

Loire

Aube

Saône-et-Loire

Côte-d'Or

Ardennes

Meuse

Meurthe-et-Moselle

Haute-Marne

Vosges

Bas-Rhin

Moselle

Var

Drôme

Vaucluse

Bouches-du-

Rhône

Isère

Hautes-Alpes

Alpes-de-Haute-Provence

Alpes-Maritimes

Haute-Saône

Haute-Savoie

Jura

Ain

Doubs

Savoie

Territoire de

Belfort 90

Haut-Rhin

Corse-du-Sud

Haute-Corse

Val-d'Oise

Yvelines

Essonne

Seine-et-Marne

Val-de-Marne

Seine-Saint-Denis

Hauts-de-Seine

Strasbourg

Belfort

Epinal

Digne-les-Bains

Gap

Valence

Privas

Bar-le-Duc

Vesoul

Chaumont

Bourg-en-Bresse

Lons-le-Saunier

Mâcon

Moulins

Troyes

Châlons-en-

Champagne

Laon

Arras

Charleville-Mézières

Clermont-Ferrand

St-Etienne

Melun

Evry

Pontoise

Mende

Tulle

Rodez

Aurillac

Le Puy-en-Velay

Auxerre

Nevers

Châteauroux

Guéret

Blois

Beauvais

Evreux

Cahors

Angoulême

Périgueux

Mont-de-Marsan

Niort

Tours

Laval

Le Mans

Alençon

Saint-Lô

La Roche-sur-Yon

La Rochelle

Nantes

Quimper

St-Brieuc

Vannes

Lille

Annecy

Nice

Toulon

Ajaccio

Marseille

Avignon

Albi

Montauban

Foix

Carcassonne

Auch

Tarbes

Perpignan

Chartres

Mata-Utu

Bobigny

Nanterre

Créteil

Rennes

Caen

Angers

Douai

Amiens

Reims

Nancy

Colmar

Besançon

Rouen

Dijon

Versailles

Orléans

Bourges

Riom

Poitiers

Bordeaux

Pau

Agen

Montpellier

Nimes

Nîmes

Aix-en-Provence

Grenoble

Lyon

Chambéry

Bastia

Toulouse

Limoges

Metz

Paris

Papeete

Nouméa

Basse-Terre

Cayenne

Fort-de-France

Saint-Denis

Saint-Pierre

Mamoudzou

Bretagne

Pays-de-la-Loire

Normandie

Centre

Hauts-de-France

Grand-Est

Bourgogne-Franche-Comté

Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes

Provence-Alpes-

Côte-d'Azur

Occitanie

Nouvelle-Aquitaine

Ile-de-France

Corse

Mooréa

Iles sous le vent

Raiatea

Nuku-Hiva

Iles du vent

Tahaa

Iles Marquises

Wallis

Futuna

Marie-Galante

Tahiti

Guadeloupe 97-1

Saint-Pierre et Miquelon 97-5

Polynésie française 98-7

Nouvelle-Calédonie 98-8

Wallis et Futuna 98-6

Saint-Martin 97-8

St-Barthélemy 97-7

Guyane 97-3

La Réunion 97-4

Mayotte

97-6

Martinique 97-2

Département et sa préfecture

Chef-lieu de région

Périmètre des régions administratives

Chambre d’appel

Cour d'appel, tribunal supérieur d'appel,

Cour de cassation

Légende

Ministère de la Justice

C-02

Régions administratives et cours d’appel

Direction des

services

judiciaires

Octobre 2018

Geographical limits of the regions and the jurisdiction of the courts of appeal

COURT OF AUDITORS

services of the same ministry.

In mainland France and Corsica, the

jurisdiction of nine courts of appeal spans two

administrative regions, that of one court of

appeal covers three regions while nine regions

include several courts of appeal: up to five in

New Aquitaine and in Auvergne Rhône Alpes.

The size of these jurisdictions is very mixed:

while two of them have particularly large

workforces (Paris, over 290 judges and Aix en

Provence, almost 150), ten others have less

than 10 judges.

This situation causes difficulties in

implementing public policies managed at the

regional level and a structural weakness in

certain courts of appeal, which are clearly too

small. In observations to the government on 30

April 2019, the Court has previously highlighted

to what extent the specificity of this territorial

division hindered the partnership with other

decentralised government services in many

areas such as the fight against crime, victim

aid, breaches of labour law, the fight against

terrorism and even environmental damage.

Moreover, the absence of a single contact

point at the regional level complicates the

recognition of the judicial system and increases

the formalities for its partners.

2 - Inefficient management

Under the LOLF (by-law relating to finance

acts), the programme operating budget (BOP)

makes it possible to implement a programme

in the field. Its manager distributes the BOP

funding among different programme operating

units. This is not the situation for the courts

of appeal, despite appearances. There are

16 courts of appeal responsible for BOP but

they have no authority, in terms of regulating

spending or managing jobs, over the court

officials responsible for operational units.

Despite the existence of courts of appeal-BOP,

budget execution is in fact split between the 28

courts of appeal.

This non-hierarchical organisation has led

to a loss of interest in the management

dialogues between the courts of appeal and

the directorate of judicial services (DSJ). It

obstructs any possibility of exchanging funds

within the jurisdiction of a BOP. The small size

of certain courts of appeal makes this practice

not very credible. As the Court has shown, this

situation has led the resources of each court

of appeal being renewed according to the

consumption of the funding of the previous

year, without justification of the expenditure at

the first euro or use of performance indicators.

It also hinders the pooling of logistics functions

at the BOP level.

Finally, the location of the courts of appeal

is unrelated to that of the inter-regional

delegations of the general secretariat (SG)

of the Ministry of Justice, responsible for

providing support to local offices of the central

government in terms of human resources

management, procurement and monitoring of

budget and accounting execution, real estate,

IT and telecommunications. This results in

complex situations, such as that of the Nîmes

Court of Appeal, with an IT management

department is in Toulouse, the chorus IT

centre in Montpelier and real estate in Aix en

Provence.

B - A redesign of the map of the

courts of appeal is necessary

1 - Converging findings, postponed

reforms

The difficulties caused by the current map of

the courts of appeal are not disputed. However,

any change was excluded from the 2008 reform

IMPROVING THE MANAGEMENT OF THE PUBLIC JUSTICE SERVICE

which abolished more than 300 courts (21

high courts, 178 district courts, 62 industrial

relations tribunals, 55 commercial courts),

although the hypothesis of maintaining only

one court per region had been studied. Work

to reform the map of appeal courts was carried

out as part of the preparatory discussions for

the 2018-2022 justice programming law. The

conferences of the first presiding judges and

attorneys general were in favour, under certain

conditions. This possibility was ruled out, based

on the argument put forward by certain local

elected officials and lawyers in particular that

justice had to be kept accessible. However, by

the very nature of their activity, the courts of

appeal are the jurisdictions where immediate

proximity to the litigant is the least necessary.

The 2018-2022 programming and justice

reform law therefore maintains the existing

network of courts of appeal but provides

for the possibility of experimenting in two

regions for a period of three years: the

specialisation of courts of appeal in certain

civil matters as determined by decree. It also

provides that the first presiding judges and

attorneys general at these courts of appeal will

be able to hold leadership and coordination

positions in a jurisdiction that may extend

to that of several courts of appeal located

within the same administrative region. This

experiment is expected to make it possible to

consider pooling, particularly in IT, and ways

to improve budget organisation. The decree

describing the matters that can give rise to

specialisation was published in December 2019

but the experimentation regions were still not

designated in October 2021.

2 - Possible scenarios

Three scenarios for changing the map of

French courts of appeal are possible.

The first consists of adapting the jurisdiction

of the courts of appeal to the administrative

regions and reducing their number. This does

not mean maintaining only 13 courts of

appeal but guarantees that the jurisdiction

of each court of appeal is included in a

single administrative region and that only

the largest regions will retain more than one

court of appeal. The number of courts would

be determined according to geographic and

demographic characteristics, the volume of

litigation activity, local operating conditions,

the threshold required for the decentralised

management of judicial personnel and the

necessary funds. In this hypothesis, and taking

into account the work prior to the programming

law, the number of courts of appeal could be

close to twenty. The purpose of choosing to

bring the jurisdiction of the courts of appeal

closer to the administrative regions rather than

to the inter-regional territories of the prison

administration is to facilitate relations between

the courts and other government services.

The second, based on principles identical to

scenario 1, could maintain a higher number

of courts of appeal by making some of them

specialist. It is however inevitable that courts

of appeal with insufficient critical size would

be eliminated in all cases. Like the first, this

scenario includes an overhaul of the budget

organisation and designation of a real BOP

manager.

The third scenario is the one selected by the

programming law. However, three years after

its announcement, the experiment has still not

started. Moreover, there is nothing to ensure

that the chosen courts of appeal would be

capable of dealing with all subjects and that

the others would accept the choices made,

taking into account local specificities.

Under these conditions, only scenarios 1

COURT OF AUDITORS

and 2 seem likely to meet the requirements.

Implementing them in negotiation with local

stakeholders could mean that in certain specific

situations, external sessions can be organised.

If no change is noted in the map of the courts

of appeal, another kind of reform could prove

necessary. This would consist of relieving

the courts of appeal officials from their

role of budget management, transferring it

to interregional directorates responsible for

the administration of judicial services, in the

manner chosen for real estate and IT issues.

Such a development would ensure budget

management in accordance with the LOLF and

professionalise the duties of managing the

judicial system in a sector-based logic.

However, it would not eliminate the difficulty

resulting from the current map of the courts

of appeal in their dialogue with the partner

decentralised administrations and developing

shared policies with them.

2 - ALLOCATING RESOURCES BASED ON REASONED FINDINGS

A - An increase in budgets that is not

reflected in the results, especially

judgment times

The increase in funds and staff in the justice

system for nearly 10 years, to be continued in

2022, is partly justified by comparisons with

European countries. According to the 2020

study by the European Commission for the

Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ) of the Council of

Europe, in 2018 France allocated €69.5 per

capita and 0.2% of its GDP to its judicial system

while the European average was €72 per capita

and 0.33% of GDP. These data and especially

the comparisons between the number of

professional judges (on average 21 judges per

100,000 inhabitants in European countries

and 11 in France) must however be taken with

caution. On the one hand, they do not take

into account the employment of lay judges,

who in France handle cases relating to labour

law and commercial law. On the other hand,

the CEPEJ study shows that the legal system

of the countries has a strong influence on the

number of judges (countries under Germanic

influence have on average over 20 judges per

100,000 inhabitants, while the countries of

Western and Southern Europe, where the legal

system is inspired by Nordic law,

common law

and Napoleonic law, have between 10 and 20).

The increase in budgets and staff cannot

be seen as the only response to overcome

the difficulties encountered by the French

judicial system. Workload assessment tools

are essential to better assess the reality of

the French situation in comparison to the

neighboring countries and to guide a reasoned

allocation of resources, according to the

volume of cases and the workloads of the

courts.

The results of the steering indicators confirm

this analysis.

The increased budget, combined with

procedural simplification reforms and

lightening the judge’s workload, did not resolve

the structural difficulties of absorbing its

activity. Case backlogs are not being reduced

and the processing times for cases remain

above the targets. Whether the average

processing time for civil proceedings or

the number of jurisdictions in difficulty are

considered, results deteriorated between 2013

and 2018, worsened by the Covid-19 epidemic.

IMPROVING THE MANAGEMENT OF THE PUBLIC JUSTICE SERVICE

Above all, the number of jurisdictions in

difficulty is increasing, as the following graph

shows.

Graph no. 1: Average processing time for civil proceedings, excluding short proceedings (months)

Source: PAP and RAP justice programme

2020

2019

2018

2013

Court of Cassation

Court of Appeal

Judicial courts

Industrial tribunals

Graph no. 2: Average processing time for civil proceedings, excluding short proceedings (months)

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

Court of Appeal

High courts

Judicial courts (1)

District courts

Source: Court of Auditors based on data from projects and annual performance reports appended to finance laws.

(1) District and higher courts are included under “judicial courts” in 2020 - The data about district courts is no longer

available as of 2018.

COURT OF AUDITORS

B - The adoption of a resource allocation

framework is essential

In 2018, the Court highlighted the need

to acquire formalised tools for better

understanding of the activity of the courts as

well as a better allocation of staff to them. It

recommended that the directorate of judicial

services create a resource allocation system

based on explicit criteria combined with a case

weighting mechanism based on a typology of

court cases.

Such systems exist in other European

countries, which use standards developed

by the European and International Affairs

Department of the European Commission

(SAEI) or national standards (in Spain, Portugal

and Italy in particular). French administrative

courts also use such a system. In July 2020, the

CEPEJ adopted a system for weighting judicial

cases, which could be used as a model.

Despite the work started in the late 1990s and

the submission of several reports (in 2011,

2012, 2014 and 2018), no standard has been

adopted to date by the Ministry of Justice.

However, the need for a decision-making tool

is not disputed by the judges and various

benchmarks are already used by the ministry

and the courts, but without transparency or

directive applicable to all.

This situation is particularly damaging in a

context that should have been conducive to

a reasoned allocation of resources, since it

combines an unprecedented increase in justice

budgets and measures to lighten the work of

the judge.

Many recent reforms have indeed contributed

to reducing the work of judges in civil matters:

- the transfer of many cases to court officials:

this is the case with the diversion of divorce

by mutual consent, which represented

86,000 cases in 2016 or the transfer of the

registration of civil partnerships to registrars

or the transfer of all notarised deeds to

notaries;

- the reduction of the legal framework in

managing the assets of protected adults or

over-indebtedness cases;

- the development of alternative means of

settling disputes;

- handling class actions in specialised

structures;

- strengthening the teams around the judge,

in particular by recruiting judicial assistants,

assistant lawyers, assistant clerks and clerks.

In the absence of a workload measurement

tool, neither the Ministry of Justice nor the

presiding judges of the courts of appeal are

in a position to assess the consequences of

these reforms, which makes it impossible to

plan jobs ahead, adjusting staffing levels to

requirements and through budget increases,

boosting jurisdictions where the workload so

requires.

Only a national benchmark would allow the

ministry to determine what, in the operational

difficulties experienced by the courts, is due to

insufficient resources or flaws in organisation,

work planning and performance.

The Directorate of Judicial Services (DSJ)

already has the information required for the

decision, following European examples and

local initiatives carried out in certain French

jurisdictions. It says it is prepared to do so, as

evidenced by the support mission recently

entrusted to the General Inspectorate of

Justice and the recent implementation of a

detailed work schedule. If this is the case, there

is no reason why in 2022 software should not

IMPROVING THE MANAGEMENT OF THE PUBLIC JUSTICE SERVICE

be chosen and experiments conducted in a

sufficient number of jurisdictions to define the

specifications necessary for rolling it out. The

urgency is real because it is only on the basis

of reliable data that the use of the benchmark

will progressively contribute to an allocation

of resources based on the activity of the

courts and the objectification of their needs

(experience from other areas, particularly

hospitals, shows that the budgetary use of this

type of benchmarking is only possible after a

few years of data collection).

3 - DIGITAL, AN INSTRUMENT FOR TRANSFORMING JUSTICE

The Ministry of Justice has accumulated

a considerable delay in digital technology,

compared to other ministries, but also

compared to its European counterparts (some

countries may be a source of inspiration,

especially United Kingdom, Estonia, Portugal):

obsolete hardware in insufficient quantity,

old software that communicates minimally

with each other within the Ministry of Justice

and with justice partners (lawyers, internal

security forces in particular), IT governance

in difficulties and very low level of protection

of information systems, inability of justice

to have reliable information to drive change.

The Court has shown how prejudicial this

finding turned out to be during the Covid-19

epidemic. The insufficient hardware (laptops

and videoconferencing systems) and lack of

connection methods obstructed the switch

to remote working and hampered business

continuity. The closure of all the courts during

the first lockdown thus had the effect of

bringing the courts to a virtual halt and their

activity, reduced to emergency litigation, being

supported by 10 to 20% of staff.

During the preparatory work for the 2018-2022

programming law, it was essential to find out

the extent of the transformations required. The

minister of justice then classified the digital

transformation as the “core of the reactor” of

justice reform.

A - An extremely ambitious plan

An ambitious digital transformation plan

(PTN) was adopted for the period 2018-2022,

supported by a budget of 530 million euros

and the creation of 260 jobs over five years, to

create a

“more understandable, more accessible

and more efficient”

justice system. In total, for

the entire ministry, the initial PTN included

nearly 160 projects grouped under three

themes:

• Theme 1: consolidation of a largely

insufficient technical foundation (networks,

servers, secure mobile communication

means, etc.);

• Theme 2: application upgrades integrating

more agile development methods and the

opportunities of the central government

platform, managed within the scope of

a renewed governance, largely involving

communities of users;

• Theme 3: Support for change and support

for users, both internal to the ministry and its

partners.

Regarding the judiciary, three projects are set

to disrupt professional practice and relations

with citizens and officials of the justice system:

- continuation of the Cassiopée information

system, the backbone of the penal chain;

- the “digital criminal procedure”,

COURT OF AUDITORS

complementary to Cassiopée, which improves

relations between the investigative services of

the Ministry of the Interior and the courts;

- the roll-out of the Portalis information system

for the civil chain, which replaces the eight

main existing applications and reforms the

work of judges and the registry.

B - Maintaining the integrity and

priorities of the ministry’s digital

strategy

The PTN, defined in 2017, has had to change

since it was launched to incorporate the many

important legislative and regulatory changes

since 2019 but also, in civil matters, the priority

given to online access for litigants.

The law of 23 March 2019 on 2018-2022

programming and reform of the justice system,

adopted one year after engagement of the

PTN, had a strong impact, particularly on the

judiciary. The district and high courts have

been merged under the name of judicial court,

the reform of the juvenile criminal justice code

will take effect in 2021, many measures have

reformed the possible penalties. Concerning

civil justice, extension of the compulsory

representation of the litigant, simplification of

referral procedures and more specific reforms

such as for divorce have led to significant

modifications compared to the initial plan.

Moreover, the PTN is part of the broader

process of ministerial transformation plans

within which “daily life goals” have been

identified. In this regard in late 2019 four new

objectives were adopted for the justice system,

concerning in particular setting up a portal for

litigants to submit civil cases.

These changes were considered a priority in

implementing the PTN while the observations

leading to the plan stated that an essential

prerequisite was deepening and consolidating

the digital infrastructure of the ministry and

consisted of allocating the resources necessary

for adjustment and roll-out of the applications.

These choices, which modified the initial

schedules, contribute to explaining the delays

observed in the continuation of Cassiopée

and the many difficulties affecting the Portalis

project, the flagship PTN project; the estimated

cost, estimated at €28.5 million in 2013,

increased to €45 million in 2015 to reach €77.5

million in 2020. The estimates given in 2020

predict an overall cost on completion of over

€100 million.

In addition, the health crisis, which urgently

forced remote access to the VPN virtual private

network (software installed on several devices

in order to create a secure link between them),

and the cyber attack suffered by the Ministry of

Justice in the second half of 2020, showed that

the security of information systems should be a

priority concern.

It is legitimate that a multi-year plan cannot

be fixed and that its implementation be

adapted. However, certain new requirements,

in particular in terms of security, could have

been better anticipated. The PTN will run more

smoothly if further modifications are limited

as far as possible in the future. In any case, new

priorities and the resulting abandonment of

projects that they entail should systematically

be subject to a risk analysis in view of the

important projects essential to improving the

functioning of the ministry.

C - Anticipating changes in the

professions

Through its ambition, the PTN is a powerful

factor in modifying working methods and

organisations. Valuation of the new tools

will require implementation of a continuous

improvement process in the medium term,

IMPROVING THE MANAGEMENT OF THE PUBLIC JUSTICE SERVICE

beyond the five years planned by the PTN.

Making judicial proceedings completely

paperless will require an in-depth consultation

with the judges and support in defining new

working organisational structures.

A significant part of the work of clerks of the

court is about to disappear. Their contribution

to processing more complex cases and their

role in developing teamwork around judges

must be planned now.

The various bodies for steering and monitoring

implementation of the PTN do not include

direct representation of end users, whose

opinions, priorities and concerns are conveyed

by central government. A more direct

association of users would help prepare for

these changes.

COURT OF AUDITORS

CONCLUSION

The justice system, faced with numerous reforms of its core business, requires

the organisational and management capacities to anticipate, lead and evaluate

changes. This involves redirecting part of the attention and energies of the Ministry

of Fundamental Reforms towards improving management, and completing three

projects that have been postponed for too long.

The aim of the digital transformation plan is to catch up with the backlog in major

digital projects, some of which are old, and, on this basis, to initiate a real digital

transformation of the ministry. While it is too early to measure the effects, the first

observations show that the key to success lies in priorities being consistent beyond

cyclical reforms and in supporting professionals in the changes in their profession

induced by the digital change.

The second, the adoption and use of a benchmark assessing the workload of judges,

must now become a priority for the ministry. A national choice is now urgent.

The third, modifying the map of the courts of appeal, has obtained a consensus

on its principle. It was however excluded from the 2008 and 2019 reforms.

Experimenting, in a reduced perimeter (two regions), with specialisation of the

courts of appeal is an insufficient response. Moreover, it does not respond to all the

difficulties, particularly in connection with the insufficient size of certain courts of

appeal. A clear policy must now be implemented, not ruling out the elimination

of certain courts; it must give the courts of appeal responsible for operational

programme budgets the resources to carry out their management duties.

COURT OF AUDITORS

REFERENCES TO THE WORK OF

THE COURT OF AUDITORS

The Court has carried out a great deal of work in recent years on which it has relied,

in particular the following publications:

The business continuity plan of the judicial jurisdictions during the health

crisis, communication to the Finance, General Economy and Budgetary Control

Committee of the National Assembly, May 2021

The inadequate jurisdictions of the courts of appeal, referred to the Keeper of

the Seals, Minister of Justice, July 2019

The methodological approach to the costs of justice, survey on assessing activity

and allocating resources to the judicial courts, communication to the finance,

general economy and budgetary control committee of the National Assembly,

December 2018.

The publications of the Court of Auditors are available on the website:

www.

ccomptes.fr

This report is available on the website of the Court of Auditors:

www.

ccomptes.fr

STRUCTURAL ISSUES FOR

FRANCE

OCTOBER 2021