Evaluation of the Quality of Adjudication in Courts of Law: Principles and proposed Quality Benchmarks

In 1999, the courts in the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeal of Rovaniemi launched a project for the improvement of quality in adjudication (the Quality Project). The purpose of the Quality Project has been to support the basic work of the courts and to develop it further and further, so that court proceedings meet the requirements of a fair trial, so that the decisions are well reasoned and correct, and so that the services of the courts are accessible also in terms of their financial impact. A major element of the Quality Project has been the annual quality development targets, which are selected by the judges themselves and whose achievement is being monitored.