Revista da EMERJ - V. 21 - N. 2 - Maio/Agosto - 2019

29  R. EMERJ, Rio de Janeiro, v. 21, n. 2, p. 11-39, Maio-Agosto, 2019  of appeals (2,765 career judges, 2,156 honorary judges in the tribunali , 117 honorary judges in the courts of appeal) disposed of an average of 176 ordinary proceedings per capita in 2013 (726,638 resolved cases in the tribunali , 164,577 resolved cases in the courts of appeal). 78 To this number one should add, as far as the tribunali are concerned: bankruptcy proceedings, proceedings in family matters, executory proceedings, special proceedings (mainly payment orders and provisional measures). g) Backlog of Cases Finally, examining all adjudicating bodies (justices of the peace, tri- bunali , courts of appeal, Corte di cassazione ) as well as all civil cases, there were some 4,388,591 new proceedings initiated, 4,569,332 resolved cases, and 5,155,010 pending cases at the end of 2013 (with a 4 % decrease of backlogs, compared to 2012). The number of pending cases at the end of year has been steadily decreasing in the last 4 years, with an average de- crease of some 5 % per year. Of course, strictly speaking not all pending cases are delayed, because one has to subtract from the amount pending cases those whose duration is no longer than the “reasonable” length. 79 h) Interim Findings In the light of these statistics, it is submitted that Di Federico’ s criti- cism is excessive, as far as the average performance of Italian judges is concerned. This does not seem to play a key role in causing the unrea- sonable length of ordinary civil proceedings. This finding is confirmed by the 2015 EU Justice Scoreboard (source CEPEJ Report), where one can find that the Italian rate of resolving litigious civil and commercial cases at first instance (clearance rate) is the second best in Europe (after Luxembourg). 80 78 As to the cases resolved/judges’ ratio I could not distinguish between courts in first and second instance, because I had at my disposal only the aggregate number of 2,765 career judges dealing with civil cases in the tribunali and corti di appello . 79 The problem of assessing the reasonable length of plenary civil proceedings in Italy cannot be addressed here. At any rate, the level of delay has become clearly unreasonable in many cases in Italy, giving rise to many complaints to the European Court of Human Rights for violation of Art. 6, para 1 ECHR. To curb the number of complaints to the European Court, a law was passed in 2001 (law no. 89 of 2001) and amended in 2012 and 2013. It entitles those who suffered damages from the undue delay of proceedings to claim for money compensation. It should be kept in mind that the compensation may be claimed only when the duration of proceedings is over three years (in first instance). 80 Cf. 2015 EU Justice Scoreboard, p. 10, figure no. 8, where one can find the clearance rates of 2010, 2012, 2013. The extraordinary good performance in 2012 can however be explained rather by a significant decrease in the number of