Reducing the processing time in a civil case; a project conducted for the Dutch judiciary

摘要

In the Netherlands it can take more then a year to get a verdict in a civil case. This is not desirable from a social and economic point of view. The judiciary has made it one of its top priorities to reduce the processing time in the next couple of years. In order to gain more insight we were asked to use system dynamics to tackle this problem. The only road to success was to make sure that all stakeholders fully supported the model, its outcomes and the drawn conclusions.This paper describes how the civil process at a district court is captured in a model. It shows how we discovered the dynamics of the civil process that were unknown until now. This new insight has lead to a change of the perspective of the decision makers in what are good policies to reduce the processing time.The paper also reveals how a new stakeholder was discovered through the use of system dynamics.