Papers from a conference organised by Maastricht University Faculty of Law on 24-25 April 2003.

As it becomes clear from the contributions to this volume, delay in civil litigation is a central issue in the Western legal tradition. It cannot be avoided since justice cannot be done without a proper investigation of the case at issue and this takes time. Justice and procedural delay are therefore virtually synonymous. However, even though delay is unavoidable, it becomes problematic when it can be qualified as »undue«. [...] the present volume contains a fascinating collection of causes of due and undue delay in civil litigation [...] as well as measures to reduce the time needed to arrive at a final decision of the case. Therefore, this collection of essays may not only be worthwhile for the historically interested lawyer, but most likely also for those with an interest in the improvement of the procedural systems of our modern world.

What happens when justice is delayed? It is denied, certainly. That answer, while a truism, is also incomplete, for it does not describe the depth, intensity, and complexity of the impact of delay in Indian courts. Several questions may be considered in this context: How does an undertrial prisoner bring up her child in prison? How does delay in disposal of a claim affect a company's business? Who suffers when land acquisition is mired in litigation-landowner or the public? Does involvement in prolonged litigation detract from a government's primary purpose? Will appointing more judges solve the problem of delay and rising pendency? Are amendments to law and policy working to mitigate delays? To answer these and other questions, this volume of essays-to which lawyers, economists, sociologists, researchers, and a High Court judge have contributed-goes beyond understanding the price of delay in terms of lost time and money. Instead, it examines the effects of delay at multiple levels-individual, institutional, societal, and systemic-through critical data analyses. It also presents innovative use of cross-disciplinary methods to understand what causes delay, how its impact can be measured, and how its effects can be anticipated and avoided. Targeted systemic interventions are crucial to minimise the adverse impact of delays, so that justice is neither delayed nor frustrated, or, indeed, reduced to mere illusion!

Qing-Yun Jiang shows that court delay is not a serious problem in the lower courts in respect to trial cases, but mainly in appeal cases and retrial cases, which require more time. The author confirms that law enforcement has been an obstacle for the development of market economy and a bottleneck of the judiciary and he concludes that judicial reform should not only deal with symptoms, but with the roots of the political and economic structure.

This book brings legal and academic perspective to the theory and practice surrounding the right to a fair hearing within a reasonable time. This field of rights has been somewhat neglected academically, a fact which jars with the sheer volume of case law budding from this single, simple, fundamental right, bearing testimony to the widespread concern with delay in judicial proceedings which transcends the boundaries of states or legal systems. The work provides a blueprint for analysing the effectiveness of legal remedies across entire legal systems, as well as in any given individual case. The first part focuses on deriving legal principles from the body of jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, while the second part contains illustrations of the practical application of such principles. The content constitutes essential reading for students, academics, lawyers, judges, practitioners and all those who wish to understand the issue of delay in judicial proceedings, and the legal context of available remedies. The author aims to raise awareness about the human rights issues which come into play when delivery of justice is delayed, and to provide both an academic and practical reference.