The analysis of public justice expenditures within the scope of efficient of judicial services: Turkey and selected countries

Conceptually, justice has existed since the birth of humanity, but has been among the values taken into consideration especially from the moment humans began to live together. The coexistence of humanity led to the emergence of the state phenomenon. Therefore, with the involvement of the state institution in life, the concept of justice began to become concrete. The concept of justice has become the main duties of the state. Some thinkers have seen these services as indispensable services of the state. When the literature on justice services is examined, it can be seen that the demand side is at the forefront. However, justice services are both an important expenditure item and a full public good. In this context, in our study, justice services are discussed from a full public goods perspective and with a focus on the supply side. The aim of this study is to examine the effectiveness of justice services, which are full public goods, on a judicial basis. In the study, judicial effectiveness in the justice system is discussed. In this context, the emphasis is on the performance effectiveness rather than the decision effectiveness of the justice system. In other words, there is no investigation into whether judicial decisions have been made correctly in the justice system. In analysis of the judicial activity for Turkey, judicial and administrative justice are discussed. In this context, justice services: such as criminal enforcement services, forensic medicine and forensic science services, judicial law enforcement services and the Court of Accounts are excluded from the analysis. This is because the data of criminal and enforcement services, forensic medicine and forensic science services, and judicial law enforcement services, which are among the justice services, are irregular and sufficient data for analysis are not regularly accessed, while the Court of Accounts is excluded because, although it is a type of judicial institution, it is a financial branch of the judiciary branch and lacks the status of high courts such as the Supreme Court and the Council of State. The study consists of three parts. In the first part of the study, the concept of justice, the historical development of the concept of justice, types of justice, the public dimension of justice services and legal systems are included. In the second part of the study, the concept of effectiveness and the effectiveness of judicial services are discussed. Furthermore, the change in criminal justice and administrative justice services in Turkey between 2003 and 2023 is explained with the help of graphs. In addition, principal component analysis and gray analysis, one of the multi-criteria decision-making methods, were used to measure the annual performance in judicial services between 2003 and 2023. According to the results of the gray analysis, it was determined that between 2003 and 2023, 2003 was the most effective year in terms of judicial efficiency, and that after 2003, there was a decrease in judicial efficiency in 2004 and 2005. According to the results of gray analysis from 2005 to 2012, it was determined that there was a gradual increase in judicial efficiency. It was determined that there a decrease in the trend of judicial effectiveness after 2012 until 2023. According to the gray analysis results, it was determined that the lowest year for judicial efficiency was 2020. This result is proof that the COVID-19 pandemic negatively affected the effectiveness of the judiciary in Turkey. According to the principal components analysis conducted with 10 variables for each year from 2003 to 2023, it was determined that three factors were formed. The principal component analysis, unlike gray analysis, examined judicial effectiveness in three different sub-dimensions. Factor one represents criminal justice effectiveness. It was determined that there was a decrease in the trend of the factor of criminal justice effectiveness from 2003 to 2023. In the factor related to criminal justice effectiveness, the year with the lowest efficiency was determined to be 2020. Factor two represents administrative justice effectiveness. According to factor two, the years when the effectiveness of administrative justice was high awere between 2011 and 2017. The highest administrative judicial activity was found to be in 2012 while the lowest was found to be in 2020. Factor three measures judicial effectiveness in terms of file clearance. According to factor three, the worst years for judicial efficiency in terms of file clearance were determined to be 2005 and 2016 while, the highest years were 2010, 2019 and 2021. When the average of the values in the 3 factors resulting from the principal component analysis is taken, the result obtained in terms of annual judicial effectiveness is similar to the results obtained in the gray analysis. In addition, in the second part of the study, data on the effectiveness of justice expenditures in Turkey over the years were evaluated and interpreted. In the third part of the study, 9 input and 4 output variables were determined from the annual data of Turkey and 18 selected countries for the years 2016, 2018 and 2020, and the judicial efficiency of the countries was compared by performing DEA and Malmquist analysis. In the DEA, which was conducted by creating 4 models for each year, countries that were and were not effective in terms of judicial efficiency were determined. In addition, whether there was a change in the activities of the countries from 2016 to 2018 and from 2018 to 2020 was examined with Malmquist analysis. According to the DEA results in the third part of the study, it was concluded that Bosnia and Herzegovina and Romania were effective in terms of judicial efficiency in all 4 different models created in 2016. In 2018, it was concluded that Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Latvia and Romania were effective in terms of judicial efficiency in all 4 different models created. It was concluded that Czechia, Hungary, the Republic of Ireland and Latvia were effective in terms of judicial efficiency in all 4 different models created in 2020. According to the results of the 2018 Malmquist analysis in the third part of the study, Turkey is the only country that showed an increase in factor productivity in all models in 2018 compared to 2016. According to the results of the 2020 Malmquist analysis, the Netherlands was found to be the only country that showed an increase in factor productivity in all models in 2020 compared to 2018. In the concluding section of the study, evaluations of the analysis results made for Turkey between 2003 and 2023 are included. In addition, evaluations and recommendations regarding the results of the DEA and Malmquist analysis made using data from 2016, 2018 and 2020 for 19 countries are included.