Judicial Reform, Performance, and Governance

Judicial systems face growing pressure to improve efficiency while preserving fairness, quality, and access to justice. In 2021, Norway implemented a major judicial reform consolidating district courts to address delays and uneven workloads. This chapter evaluates the reform's early performance effects within a public sector governance framework. Using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and the Malmquist Productivity Index, the study compares court efficiency, productivity, and quality before and after the reform, incorporating case timeliness as a quality indicator. The findings show mixed results. While the reform coincided with a positive technological shift linked to digitalization, overall technical efficiency and productivity declined in the short term. Many merged courts exhibited decreasing returns to scale, suggesting consolidation exceeded optimal size in several regions. Quality outcomes, measured by overdue cases, remained largely unchanged. The chapter emphasizes policy learning, benchmarking, and targeted adjustment rather than reform reversal.