Fact check: Do Romanian judges work the most in Europe?

Romania's President Nicușor Dan recently claimed that judges in his country work significantly more than their counterparts in other European states.

"Judges in Romania have worked two or three times more than their counterparts in European countries over the years," he said during a visit to Chișinău in Moldova.

He made the comments in the context of a plan by the government to raise the retirement age for judges to 65 as part of a raft of austerity measures. As things stand, judges can retire as early as the age of 47 if they have served for 25 years.

Dan said the increase was unfair, due to the extra work that Romanian judges allegedly put in compared to other countries, and that he had asked the government to implement the change gradually over the next 15 years, instead of 10 as initially scheduled.

He also suggested doubling the amount of time a judge has to continue working until retirement, rather than a blanket raise to 65. For example, a 46-year-old judge with only one year to go would now have to work two years more, or someone due to stop in three years would instead have to work six.

Judges in every other EU country retire between 65 and 70. To compare the workload of judges in European countries in general, EuroVerify analysed figures in a recent report by the Council of Europe's European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice.

In Romania in 2022, the most recent year recorded, almost seven civil cases per 100 inhabitants were heard in a court of first instance — a court where legal proceedings are initiated and a case is first heard by a judge.

This is significantly higher than the European median of two civil cases per 100 inhabitants, and the highest rate overall, according to the Council of Europe report.

However, it's a different story for criminal and administrative cases. Romania falls around the European average for both of these, at 1.92 and 0.44, respectively, while Montenegro is at the top with 12.10 and 2.15. 

As for how many cases actually get resolved, Romania's clearance rate stands at 96% for civil cases and 97% for criminal and administrative cases, which is around the European average of about 99%.

A clearance rate of less than 100% means that the country gets more cases than it resolves, whereas a rate above 100% means it resolves more cases than the amount that comes in.

To help put this into context, we can also look at how many judges Romania has compared to the rest of Europe.

It has 22.9 professional judges per 100,000 people, according to the report, while the European median stands at 17.8.

Compare this to the likes of the Netherlands, for example, which has a similar population size to Romania (18-19 million) and a professional judge ratio of 15.

It's therefore overly simplified to suggest that Romanian judges work more than those in other European countries. They do have to handle significantly more civil cases, but this isn't the same for all areas of law or the level of instance, and cases are cleared at a similar rate to the European average.

It's worth noting as well that Romania often ranks as having one of the weakest judicial systems in Europe.

According to the World Justice Project's (WJP) most recent Rule of Law Index, which measures countries based on metrics such as fundamental rights, regulatory enforcement and the effectiveness of the criminal justice systems, Romania has the fifth-worst legal system among EU and Western European countries.

It stands above Croatia, Greece, Bulgaria and Hungary, according to the WJP.