Making Justice Takes Time. An Empirical Analysis from an Italian Court

Abstract This study’s findings are of significant importance to the Italian judicial system, which is grappling with prolonged proceedings, particularly in civil courts. The research focuses on key factors that influence a judge’s duration of legal disputes, using panel data from an Italian court for civil cases filed between 2015 and 2019. A multivariate linear model with high dimensional fixed effects is adopted. The evidence underscores the influence of the judge’s right working approach, their commitment, the procedure’s complexity, and the degrees of judgment on the trial’s length. The policy recommendations, aimed at enhancing the overall quality of the existing judicial system, include minimizing task juggling to resolve disputes, increasing the number of scheduled hearings per week, and effectively managing complexity to ensure accurate judgments.