The Functioning of the European Small Claims Procedure in the Netherlands

Download or read book The Functioning of the European Small Claims Procedure in the Netherlands written by Xandra E. Kramer and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 19 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The European small claims procedure was the first uniform adversarial procedure in the EU, introduced to increase the efficiency and to reduce the costs of cross-border small claims litigation in the Member States. The European Commission regards this procedure as an important potential contribution to access to justice in order to resolve small claims disputes. However, there are clear signs that this procedure is seldom used and the Commission seeks to improve its attractiveness. This paper focuses on the implementation and application of this European procedure in the Netherlands. Normative and empirical research has been conducted to assess how this procedure is embedded in the Dutch legal order and how it actually functions in practice and is perceived by the judiciary. The question is whether, from the Dutch perspective, this procedure meets the objectives of providing a simple, fast and low-cost alternative to existing national procedures, while respecting the right to a fair trial. The paper concludes with several recommendations for improvement.