Geospatial Research Supporting Decision-Making in Court Services – an Assessment of the 2019 District Court Reform in Finland

Abstract

As a result of the district court reform which came into force in Finland in 2019, the number of district court locations decreased from 57 to 36. The idea is that the reform strengthens the operational capacity of the district courts by forming administratively larger units. The main objective of this study is to assess the district court reform with the spatial optimization technique and demonstrate how the geospatial analysis could be utilized in the planning and decision-making process of the district court network. The results show that the reform is not geographically optimal and that, in the future, the district court network cannot be centralized very much without worsening the accessibility of the nearest district court radically. The study demonstrates that district court reform could benefit from geospatial research methods, such as location allocation analysis, as these methods offer an objective criterion for the planning and decision-making of the service networks and operational practices. Based on the findings, the next structural reform and development of the district court network in Finland should therefore be based on the development of functionality instead of shrinking the size of the network if the distances are not to increase further. The results also underline the need for new ways to develop the accessibility of district courts through digitalization.