The Impact of Court Case Management Systems on Judicial Efficiency

Efficiency is often the rationale behind judicial reforms, as most courts face challenges concerning backlogs, delays, and costs. Justice was slower than other public sectors at exploiting information technology (IT). Consequently, the history of e-justice initiatives is relatively recent. This contributes to a lack of empirical assessment studies on the impact of justice initiatives. This article addresses this gap. It describes a study that analyzes 14 years of IT use in Brazilian state courts to determine whether the actual use of IT — Court Case Management platforms — lives up to the promise of higher efficiency in courts. The study uses the rate of IT use as the independent variable and efficiency indicators (length of court cases, number of pending cases, and clearance rate) as dependent variables. Data from 2010 to 2023 was analyzed through Panel Data regression, combining time series and cross-sectional dimensions. However, the hypothesis predicting a positive impact of IT use on efficiency was rejected. After discussing possible reasons for the results obtained, the article suggests that despite undeniable gains in specific stages of court case flow, overall justice efficiency was not affected.

Keywords: e-Justice, Justice Efficiency, e-Court, Justice Performance, e-Justice Evaluation