Perceived judicial independence (general public)

77.0%→change: 1y +1.0 pts · 5y +0.3 pts · 10y +5.0 ptsas of 2026A source confidenceborn

What this number says

In 2026, 77% of the Dutch public rated the independence of courts and judges as good ('very good' or 'fairly good'). The Flash Eurobarometer survey behind the EU Justice Scoreboard, run each January in every EU member state with one question: 'From what you know, how would you rate the justice system in your country in terms of the independence of courts and judges?' This is the share answering good — a direct survey statistic, with don't-knows kept in the denominator. It measures perception, not institutional performance: the Scoreboard tracks structural safeguards separately, and a parallel survey of companies (a different population) is never merged with this one. Judicial independence underpins the rule of law, and whether the public believes courts are independent matters in its own right — this is the only EU-wide series that asks them directly, every year, with the same question.

Perceived judicial independence — Netherlands

Share of the general public rating judicial independence as good, % (Flash Eurobarometer / EU Justice Scoreboard) — EU members only; peer values exist for 2016 and 2020 onwards (the Commission's data files publish a rolling window)NetherlandsAustriaBelgiumGermanyDenmarkFinland+2 more (hover)

Peer lines share one grey on purpose: hover for countries. The compared series can differ slightly from the Dutch definition above.

Position among the same 8 countries, year by year1 = highest value

Countries are ordered by value, highest first — rank 1 means the highest number, not “the best”. A year is ranked only when all 8 countries report it; missing years stay gaps. The EU average is not a country and is not ranked.

Source & method

Source	European Commission (Flash Eurobarometer) manual:K7
Human page	https://commission.europa.eu/law/cross-border-cases/judicial-cooperation/tools-judicial-cooperation/eu-justice-scoreboard_en
Licence	European Commission / Eurobarometer, cited with attribution
Trend method	OLS over last 8 annual observations, 5% significance (MBW convention)
Revisions	None recorded since 2026-07-17. Every retrieval is stored append-only; when the source restates history, the old and new values become comparable here.
Pipeline notes	Built 12 Jul 2026 from primary sources: 2016 + 2020-2026 from the Scoreboard editions' own quantitative-data Excel files (rolling 4-wave windows; overlap years byte-identical across editions); 2017-2019 read first-hand from the full Flash Eurobarometer reports (FL447 p.38, FL461 p.45, FL474 p.42), each internally cross-validated against the prior wave via the tables' own diff columns. FL numbers per year: 435, 447, 461, 474, 483, 489, 503, 519, 540, 555, 581. Fieldwork is each January; period = survey year. Known Commission citation anomaly: the 2025 edition cites FL555 for both the general-public and companies surveys (companies normally has its own FL number) — values used here are from the general-public figure/sheet only. The parallel companies survey is a different population and is never merged. Refresh each spring from the new Scoreboard edition's data file.

Raw snapshot (JSON) · every observation keeps its retrieval timestamp and revision history in the public database.

Data table — Perceived judicial independence (Netherlands)

Period	Value
2026	77.0
2025	76.0
2024	69.9
2023	70.0
2022	77.0
2021	76.7
2020	77.0
2019	71.0
2018	79.0
2017	76.0
2016	72.0