Our Minister of Justice opines that the Ministry of Justice’s 2021 budget will benefit from an extraordinary increase; It now offers a historic 2022 budget. However, every day, magistrates, lawyers and legal professionals condemn the inadequate budget and make it ineligible for an economically developed country. So, for example, 1^Is March 2021, First President of the Court of Cassation, in an interview Figaro, Protest against tragic and forgotten civil justice. Political controversy or sad reality?

When confronted with such conflicting positions, we must proceed properly and try to objectively analyze the financial resources available to the Ministry of Justice, the essential royal ministry. To form an opinion, the best way is to compare the situation in France with other European countries.

We have set aside 69 83.20 for Italy,. 92.60 for Spain, 1 131.20 for Germany and 6 236 for Switzerland, approximately. 69.50 per resident for this budget! This simple comparison is sad.

Populationization. The poverty of this ministry results in fewer magistrates per million residents than in many other countries, whose average remuneration is unmatched by that of their European counterparts. At the same time, the French budget allocated for punitive measures is less than most countries in the Union.

We hope that the legal aid, that is, the financing of legal expenses for our most backward Companions, will be equal to that of a state claiming to be a welfare state; This is not the case as many countries, such as the United Kingdom, Ireland, Norway and Switzerland, have large budgets for this item.

Don’t we have to look at the revenue side to revolutionize the budget of the Ministry of Justice? Almost every country in the European Union has long since found a solution: no one but the economically backward people contributes to the litigation.

How can this condition be treated?

Let’s look at the solution adopted by our neighbors. 78% of European countries outsource a limited number of activities to the Ministry of Justice in IT, security, archives, maintenance and catering. The solution is to reduce the number of employees assigned to these tasks and to reduce the number of calls made to the tender system.

France has an outsourced service, which works well for the state as a whole: commercial courts. Fifty years ago the registrars of the Magistrates’ Courts were kept by the ministerial officers at no cost to the State. Overall they worked well: they advertised without providing any real resources, especially IT.

Why not think about legal reform of civil courts, inspired by the registrars of commercial courts?

But beyond the issue of expenditure, shouldn’t we look at the revenue side to revolutionize the budget of the Ministry of Justice? Almost all the countries in the European Union have long since found a solution: they have employed arbitrators, except for those who are economically backward.

User fees. Thanks to this co-payment system, as in medicine in France, Germany has a balanced budget, the size of which is larger than the French budget, and even Austria has a surplus budget of justice!

Is it impossible for the mission to consider reforming this range? We can be pessimistic when referring to the first “reform” that began during the five-year term of Nicolas Sarkozy: in each case a tax of 35 euros was imposed on the costs of the arbitrators.

The system increased the budget by about 50 million euros. Unfortunately, Christian Tubira, after the appointment, dropped the bill, leaving taxpayers to pay instead of litigants using the services of the Ministry of Justice.

We need the political will to change the software used to finance justice. We must carry out a “revolution” to use the title of a book written by our current President of the Republic.

Thus, a budget comparable to that of our European neighbors can be compared to the budgets allocated to this sovereign ministry in the 19th century.^e In the century, revenue from litigants represents 80% of this budget!

Bernard Monassier, Honorary Notary, Vice President of the Circle des Physicalists.