To streamline legal procedures in criminal matters, effective cooperation between authorities would be needed, which is currently lacking. To streamline the procedure, measurable common targets and cooperation structures to support them would be needed.
The criminal procedure is a chain consisting of a pre-trial investigation, consideration of charges and court proceedings. Lengthy procedures have been perceived as a problem for years, and the matter has been the focus of attention in the administrative branch of the Ministry of Justice throughout the 2000s. The audit assessed how the public administration has investigated the reasons for prolonged criminal procedures and what efforts have been made to streamline them. The audit covered the period between 2010 and 2024. A key aspect to which the audit focused attention was the authorities’ ability to steer the process as a whole. The responsible ministries are the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of the Interior.
In 2024, the operating expenses of the police, prosecutors and courts amounted to approx. EUR 1.3 billion. The operating expenses of the police, which are also used for many other purposes besides pre-trial investigations included in the criminal procedure, accounted for the greatest share of this amount. The direct or indirect significance for central government finances of prolonged criminal procedures is difficult to determine.
A number of different reviews regarding the prolonged criminal procedures and legislative proposals for streamlining them had been produced throughout the period covered by the audit. The proposals for streamlining the procedure concerned all authorities. Despite the measures taken, the processing times of criminal procedures have grown longer.
The authorities had conducted few proactive assessments or ex post evaluations of the proposed measures’ impacts. Knowledge of the impacts of the measures would be useful when planning and selecting future measures. The implementation of proposals has been slow at times. Targets for accelerating the procedures have been set for individual authorities, with no common targets for all actors.
The National Audit Office recommends that the responsible ministries assess the impacts of measures on the length of the criminal procedure more carefully, that the implementation of reforms be accelerated, that common targets be set, and that a cooperation structure be created to support target achievement.
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