The 2007 Judicial Reform and Court Performance in Egypt
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Nora El Bialy
Abstract
This paper contributes to the existing literature on court performance by providing an empirical study about the performance of Egyptian First Instance Courts (FICs). A panel data model on 22 courts for 9 years is estimated to answer the following questions: (1) did the 2007 judicial reform improve the performance of Egyptian FICs? (2) What are the determinants of court output? Our results show tshat the 2007 reform has generally contributed to improving the overall resolution rate in Egyptian FICs. Delay problems related to the resolution of civil cases are however still persistent. Courts with a relatively higher load of criminal cases appear to be more productive while those with a higher load of civil cases still lag behind. Furthermore, higher levels of judicial turnover are associated with lower rates of court output, whereas the computerization of courts leads to higher resolutions. Finally, judicial seniority and the number of judges with higher academic degrees do not affect the resolution rate in FICs.
Acknowledgment
The author thanks Councilor Ahmed Zaki (Egyptian Ministry of Justice) for his huge effort in facilitating the data collection process and Jerg Gutmann for his continuous support on the entire empirical part of the paper. The author also thanks Ahmed Elshourbagy for his excellent research assistance. Comments by Matthias Dauner, Agnes Strauß, Sheima Hanafy, Moamen Gouda and Florian Neumeier are gratefully acknowledged. Finally my greatest gratitude goes to Professor Stefan Voigt for his guidance and continuous support.
Appendix
Which regions of the world have been covered so far?
Average court resolution rate per court location from 2001–2011.
Court performance within countries.
| Country | Paper |
| Brazil | Yeung and Azevedo (2011) |
| Germany | Schneider (2005) |
| Greece | Mitsopoulos and Pelagidis (2007) |
| India | Chemin (2009a), Micevska and Hazra (2004), Chemin (2012) |
| Israel | Beenstock and Heitovsky (2004) |
| Italy | Castro and Guccio (2012) |
| Latin America | Staats et al. (2005) |
| Norway | Kittelsen and Forsund (1992) |
| Pakistan | Chemin (2009b) |
| Romania | Murell (2001) |
| Slovenia | Dimitrova-Grajzl et al. (2012) |
| Spain | Pedraja and Salinas (1996), Bagues and Esteve-Volart (2010) |
| Spain (Andalusia) | Rosales-Lopez (2008) |
| Sweden | Hagstedt and Proos (2008) |
| USA | Ostrom and Hanson (2000), Dalton and Singer (2009) |
| USA (Detroit) | Luskin and Luskin (1986) |
| USA (North Carolina) | Lewin et al. (1982) |
Descriptive statistics: (common sample).
| Variable | Obs | Mean | Std. Dev. | Min | Max |
| RESOL | 198 | 0.87 | 0.08 | 0.59 | 0.99 |
| REFORM | 198 | 0.33 | 0.47 | 0 | 1 |
| LOAD | 198 | 3.67 | 1.86 | 0.68 | 9.95 |
| CRIMINAL | 198 | 0.75 | 0.12 | 0.14 | 0.94 |
| JSUP | 198 | 0.61 | 0.13 | 0.28 | 0.93 |
| DISTANCE | 198 | 197.81 | 201.99 | 11 | 871 |
| QUAL | 110 | 0.17 | 0.08 | 0.07 | 0.39 |
| TURNOVER | 110 | 0.18 | 0.06 | 0.08 | 0.30 |
| COMP | 110 | 1.74 | 0.74 | 0.46 | 3.48 |
Correlation Matrix (common sample).
| RESOL | REFORM | LOAD | CRIMINAL | JSUP | DISTANCE | QUAL | TURNOVER | COMP | |
| RESOL | 1.00 | ||||||||
| 19.00 | |||||||||
| REFORM | 0.25 | 1.00 | |||||||
| 0.00 | |||||||||
| 198.00 | 198.00 | ||||||||
| LOAD | –0.41 | –0.22 | 1.00 | ||||||
| 0.00 | 0.00 | ||||||||
| 198.00 | 198.00 | 198.00 | |||||||
| CRIMINAL | 0.10 | –0.32 | 0.35 | 1.00 | |||||
| 0.15 | 0.28 | 0.00 | |||||||
| 198.00 | 198.00 | 198.00 | 198.00 | ||||||
| JSUP | 0.06 | 0.46 | –0.16 | –0.24 | 1.00 | ||||
| 0.41 | 0.00 | 0.03 | 0.00 | ||||||
| 198.00 | 198.00 | 198.00 | 198.00 | 198.00 | |||||
| DISTANCE | 0.05 | –0.00 | –0.15 | –0.04 | 0.26 | 1.00 | |||
| 0.60 | 1.00 | 0.12 | 0.96 | 0.03 | |||||
| 198.00 | 198.00 | 198.00 | 198.00 | 198.00 | 198.00 | ||||
| QUAL | 0.05 | –0.00 | –0.20 | 0.04 | 0.01 | –0.46 | 1.00 | ||
| 0.58 | 1.00 | 0.04 | 0.64 | 0.91 | 0.00 | ||||
| 110.00 | 110.00 | 110.00 | 110.00 | 110.00 | 110.00 | 110.00 | |||
| TURNOVER | –0.07 | –0.00 | –0.34 | –0.12 | 0.04 | –0.08 | 0.55 | 1.00 | |
| 0.45 | 1.00 | 0.00 | 0.20 | 0.65 | 0.41 | 0.00 | |||
| 110.00 | 110.00 | 110.00 | 110.00 | 110.00 | 110.00 | 110.00 | 110.00 | ||
| COMP | 0.23 | –0.00 | –0.19 | –0.19 | –0.09 | 0.05 | 0.30 | 0.17 | 1.00 |
| 0.02 | 1.00 | 0.05 | 0.35 | 0.62 | 0.00 | 0.75 | 0.07 | ||
| 110.00 | 110.00 | 110.00 | 110.00 | 110.00 | 110.00 | 110.00 | 110.00 | 110.00 |
The Hausman test.
| Coefficients | |||||
| (b) | (B) | (b-B) | sqrt(diag(V_b-V_B)) | ||
| fe | re | Difference | S.E. | ||
| REFORM | 0.04000 | 0.03965 | 0.00041 | 0.00058 | |
| LOAD | –0.01425 | –0.01645 | 0.00220 | 0.00144 | |
| CRIMINAL | 0.14754 | 0.17008 | –0.02254 | 0.01055 | |
| JSUP | –0.00030 | –0.00043 | 0.00013 | 0.00017 | |
| b = consistent under Ho and Ha; obtained from xtreg | |||||
| B = | inconsistent under Ha, efficient under Ho; obtained from xtreg | ||||
| Test: | Ho: | difference in coefficients not systematic | |||
| chi2(4) = (b-B)'[(V_b-V_B)^(-1)](b-B) | |||||
| = 4.89 | |||||
| Prob>chi2 = 0.2990 | |||||
| (V_b-V_B is not positive definite) | |||||
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Becker, Coase, Tullock and Manne: A Personal Tribute
- Convergence of Legal Rules: Comparing Cooperative and Non-Cooperative Processes
- Causal Apportionment of Tort Liability: An Efficient Approach
- The Effect on Lawyers Income of Gender Information Contained in First Names
- An Economic Assessment of Criminal Behaviour
- The 2007 Judicial Reform and Court Performance in Egypt
- Entrepreneurship and the Legal Form of Businesses: The Role of Differences in Beliefs
- How Accurately Can Convertibles be Classified as Debt or Equity for Tax Purposes? Evidence from Australia
- Constitutional Commitment to Social Security and Welfare Policy
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Becker, Coase, Tullock and Manne: A Personal Tribute
- Convergence of Legal Rules: Comparing Cooperative and Non-Cooperative Processes
- Causal Apportionment of Tort Liability: An Efficient Approach
- The Effect on Lawyers Income of Gender Information Contained in First Names
- An Economic Assessment of Criminal Behaviour
- The 2007 Judicial Reform and Court Performance in Egypt
- Entrepreneurship and the Legal Form of Businesses: The Role of Differences in Beliefs
- How Accurately Can Convertibles be Classified as Debt or Equity for Tax Purposes? Evidence from Australia
- Constitutional Commitment to Social Security and Welfare Policy
