The Dutch judiciary will receive 155 million euros for digitization and security

The Dutch judiciary will receive an additional budget of 155 million euros in the coming years. This will be invested in, among other things, better digitization of the judiciary and to improve digital security.

The Judiciary gets between 2023 and 2025 an extra 155 million euros in budget every year. Last year, the coalition agreement already stated that both the judiciary and the Public Prosecution Service would receive an additional 200 million euros annually. A significant part of this is therefore for the judiciary. The Judiciary wants to use the extra money to hire more judges. A part is also intended for handling large, complex cases involving subversive crime, which are often large in scope and have high costs for security, for example.

The Council for the Judiciary wants to use part of the money to ‘invest heavily to make the Judiciary more accessible digitally’. Online services must also improve. The judiciary has been suffering from lagging ICT for years. As early as 2018, the Dutch Association for the Judiciary sounded the alarm because judges and public prosecutors were working with inadequate ICT. In addition, in recent years there has been increasing attention to making the judiciary more digital. That started during the corona crisis, when many court cases suddenly had to be conducted digitally. The Council for the Judiciary already advocated that it should remain possible to follow online hearings even after corona. This requires a change in the law, but also requires significant investment in new ICT equipment. Finally, the Council wants three-quarters of all judgments to be available online.

The extra budget will not only be used to innovate, says the Judiciary. The security of ICT is also being put in order, although the Judiciary does not provide details about this. It is also not known what the budget distribution will be for the various components that the Judiciary wants to improve.