This study developed an enhanced evidence-base of the extent to which and how Member States have made use of the ESF and the ERDF in the programming periods 2007-2013 and 2014-2020 to support their justice systems. The study covered the following 16 Member States, all of which had identified support to justice systems in their programming documents: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Spain, Croatia, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. While the study focussed on identifying and collecting information on individual projects that supported the justice system, it also looked at the programming of support to the justice systems in the 16 Member States. Focusing on the justice system, the study provides a detailed summary of the programming documents, evaluations, evaluation plans, Annual Implementation Reports and needs assessments relating to both programming periods. Data was collected using the following sources: programming documents, relevant publicly available documents and project-related websites, as well as through consultation with national and regional-level stakeholders (i.e. Managing Authorities, Intermediate Bodies and/or project beneficiaries). Managing Authorities were given the opportunity to verify the data at the end of the data collection phase. The study findings show that support for justice systems is still an emerging area for cohesion policy. Although all Member States covered by this study did use ESF and ERDF to support their justice systems, justice needs were not included in all programming documents. During the previous programming period (2007-2013) in particular, justice needs were only included in a few Member States’ ex-ante evaluations, needs assessments or National Strategic Reference Frameworks (NSRFs) and, if included, references to justice were usually at a general level. In addition, the documents often did not explicitly mention justice when setting out needs, priorities and planned activities. Instead, justice support was mainly included within wider support to public administration.
