Broken Justice: how Europe let its courts decay

The contents show how this is an actual problem in almost every European country:

Collapsing sewage drains in Brussels’ landmark Palais de Justice, judicial clerks striking in Lisbon, years-long waits for hearings in London. After years of underfunding in justice systems across Europe, the continent is grappling with a crisis in its courts.

Over the past decade, as Europe has faced stuttering economies, a wrenching pandemic and the impact of war, justice has routinely been targeted for spending cuts by governments that have prioritised other parts of the public realm such as healthcare and education.

The result has been crumbling courts and shortages of publicly funded lawyers, creating record case backlogs and eroding trust in the justice system in a host of countries. The problems have become so severe that leading lawyers warn they threaten to undermine the rule of law, which underpins European institutions and cross-border trade.

Europe’s slow-burning malaise has taken a different form from the sudden, convulsive crisis Donald Trump has brought upon the US legal establishment, pushing executive power to the point of outright defiance of the judiciary.