The statistical function of the National Office for the Judiciary

The National Office for the Judiciary (hereinafter: NOJ) as the central administrative body of the judiciary and as an accredited member of the Official Statistical Service fulfils its statistical function according to the principles laid down in the Practical Code of National Statistics. The judiciary is committed to continually improve the quality of said function.

The statistical activities of the judiciary are regulated by Act CLV of 2016 on official statistics and by its execution decree (184/2017 [VII. 5.] Government decree), as well as by the National Statistical Data Collection Program (OSAP).

As part of its official statistical function, the NOJ collects data regarding the caseload of the courts, the method of handling cases, the average length of already finished and ongoing cases, and on defendants who were convicted by final judgements. To achieve this, the goal and task of the NOJ are to record, process, store, analyse, provide, report, and publish data in a modern way and according to established statistical methods. By providing data and presenting relations between them, this function helps citizens as well as different state-, social- or economic organizations to get an objective and impartial look at the processes of administering justice in the courts.

The uploaded statistical charts and analyses are only available in Hungarian!

Created statistics:

1. In the framework of OSAP the NOJ records the following data:

1. Statistical data on adult defendants of closed criminal cases

Data providers: courts passing final decisions (District Courts, Regional Courts, Regional Courts of Appeal, the Supreme Court [hereinafter: Curia])

Way of collecting data: through electronic forms

Scope of collected data: specific data about the adult defendants of closed criminal cases

Frequency of data collection: depends on the occurrence (of final decisions)

Deadline for submitting data: 15 of the month following the month of occurrence

2. Statistical data on juvenile defendants of closed criminal cases

Data providers: courts passing final decisions (District Courts, Regional Courts, Regional Courts of Appeal, the Supreme Court)

Way of collecting data: through electronic forms

Scope of collected data: specific data about the juvenile defendants of closed criminal cases

Frequency of data collection: depends on the occurrence (of final decisions)

Deadline for submitting data: 15 of the month following the month of occurrence

3. Statistical data on the caseload of District Courts

Data providers: district courts

Way of collecting data: through data transfer from the Integrated Judicial Information System

Frequency of data collection: biannually

4. Statistical data on the caseload of administrative and labour courts

Data providers: administrative and labour courts

Way of collecting data: through data transfer from the Integrated Judicial Information System

Frequency of data collection: biannually

5. Statistical data on the first instance caseload of regional courts

Data providers: regional courts

Way of collecting data: through data transfer from the Integrated Judicial Information System

Scope of collected data: number of started, closed or ongoing cases at the end of the reference period, broken down by the subject of the procedure; the type of the final decision in closed cases; the average length of the litigation procedures in first instance cases; the average amount in dispute of newly started civil cases; caseload regarding the execution of sentences; caseload regarding liquidation and bankruptcy; how were liquidation procedures closed; the average length of closed liquidation procedures

Frequency of data collection: biannually

6. Statistical data on the second instance caseload of regional courts

Data providers: regional courts

Way of collecting data: through data transfer from the Integrated Judicial Information System

Scope of collected data: number of started, closed or ongoing second instance cases at the end of the reference period, broken down by the subject of the procedure; the type of the final decision in closed cases; the average length of the litigation procedures in second instance cases; the average amount in dispute of second instance civil cases

Frequency of data collection: biannually

7. Statistical data on the caseload of regional courts of appeal

Data providers: regional courts of appeal

Way of recording data: through data transfer from the Integrated Judicial Information System

Scope of collected data: number of started, closed or ongoing second or third instance cases at the end of the reference period, broken down by the subject of the procedure; the type of the final decision in closed cases; the average length of appealed litigation procedures; the average amount in dispute of appealed civil cases; caseload regarding other matters

Frequency of data collection: biannually

8. Statistical data on the caseload of registry courts

Data providers: regional courts

Way of collecting data: through data gathering

Scope of collected data: number of started, closed or ongoing cases at the end of the reference period, broken down by case groups and by the type of documents

Frequency of data collection: every month

Deadline for submitting data: 15 of the month following the month of reference

9. Statistical data on the caseload of the Curia

Data provider: Curia

Way of collecting data: through data transfer from the Integrated Judicial Information System

Scope of collected data: number of started, closed or ongoing first-, second- or third instance cases, as well as review procedures at the end of the reference period, broken down by the subject of the procedure; the average length of appealed cases and review procedures; caseload regarding other matters

Frequency of data collection: biannually

2. From the collected data the NOJ produces the following statistics (statistical products):

1. Caseload statistics

Biannually (for the first half, and the whole of the reference year), the NOJ creates charts about the caseload of the judiciary. The charts contain information about the number of started, closed and ongoing cases in the reference period all in one, as well as broken down by area of law, by the level of the court, and by regional courts. The charts also contain statistics about the average length of closed and ongoing cases. Additional to the information relating to the reference period, the change compared to the last period is also indicated by per cent.

https://birosag.hu/ugyforgalmi-adatok

2. Detailed analyses

Biannual analyses are made regarding the changes in caseload inside the reference period, as well as about the noticeable short- or long-term changes and the reasons behind them.

https://birosag.hu/ugyforgalmi-adatok

3. Statistical yearbooks

Apart from the data on the caseload of the judiciary, the NOJ also compiles an annual statistical yearbook. This – again presented in charts – contains the number of started, closed or ongoing cases in each court broken down by area of law.

https://birosag.hu/statisztikai-evkonyvek

4. Statistical data on defendants of closed criminal cases

The NOJ processes the electronic forms uploaded by the courts into the central database and makes the compiled statistical database available to the general public.

https://birosag.hu/jogerosen-befejezett-buntetoeljarasok-vadlottainak-statisztikai-adatai

Publication of the compiled statistics

The statistical charts and the relevant analyses are published by the NOJ biannually: statistics regarding the first half of the reference year are published by the 31 October of the same year; while statistics on the whole of the reference year are published by 30 April of next year.
The database containing statistical data on defendants of closed criminal cases is updated each month. The finalization of data uploaded in each reference year is done by 31 March of the next year. The finalized database is then published by 30 April.

All statistical products are available on the central judicial webpage (birosag.hu), in “Statisztikai adatok” (Statistical data) under the “Adatbázisok” (Databases) tab.

Under the “Ügyforgalmi adatok” (Caseload) tab the charts (.xls) and analyses (.pdf) can be filtered by year or the name of the document. To help understand and analyse the data, multiple graphs are provided.

Under the “Statisztikai évkönyvek” (Statistical yearbooks) tab the charts (.xls) can be searched by year.

Under the “Jogerősen befejezett büntetőeljárások vádlottjainak statisztikai adatai” (Statistics on defendants of closed criminal cases) tab a short introduction can be found about the structure of the data and how it should be analysed. The thematic compilations (.xls or .pdf) can be found here by year. The database (.csv) and the code dictionary can also be found here.

Under the “Statisztikai kérdőívek” (Statistical questionnaires) tab, forms used between 2012 and 2019, and the forms currently used for data collection can be found.

The methodology of data collection

1. Statistics on defendants of closed criminal cases

The courts that passed a final judgement on a juvenile or adult defendant provide data regarding the conviction through electronic forms. These statistical data have to be given according to the information recorded in the Integrated Judicial Information System, and the data that can be gathered from the case files.

2. Caseload

The data service regarding the caseload is exhaustive, extending to all arrived, closed or ongoing cases. The service happens by receiving the data recorded by the district courts, regional courts, regional courts of appeal or the Curia in the Integrated Judicial Information System.
The regional courts functioning as registry courts provide statistical data through electronic forms, in which service the Corporate Information and Electronic Procedure Assistance Service also participates. The data service is exhaustive, as it extends to all judicial corporate matters.

Terminology and classifications used in data collections

The NOJ designed the classifications used in data collection following the structure of the judiciary, all the while being mindful of its legal nature. Thus, the terminology and definitions used to follow the vocabulary of the applied substantive, procedural or administrative regulations. Some of the definitions can be found in publicly available legal acts, while the explanation of the rest and the explanation of the most important definitions can be found in the guide found on the central judicial webpage (https://birosag.hu/statisztikai-fogalmak-magyarazata).

Scope of data collection:

• number of started, closed or still ongoing cases in the reference period;
• the number of defendants convicted.

Because of the special contents of the data production, the use of international statistical classifications, nomenclatures and methodologies is rather limited. Furthermore, because of the differences in legal systems, the generated statistics can hardly be compared with similar statistics of other countries.

Order of requesting statistical data

The NOJ aims to inform users about the statistics it creates as quickly and fully as possible. In case users outside of the judiciary would like to request data in a different form than it is already published on the central webpage, they can do so by submitting a special request to the NOJ (obh@obh.birosag.hu). The request will be approved by the president of the NOJ.

The deadline to comply with the request is 5 workdays from the approval by the president.

If the request can not be fulfilled, can only be fulfilled partially, or can not be fulfilled in 5 workdays, the NOJ informs the requester about the limits of fulfilling their request.

In case of a request for scientific purposes, users can turn to the Scientific Documentation Department of the Hungarian Judicial Academy (miatdo@obh.birosag.hu).