Austrian judges, prosecutors go on strike over staff shortages

Austria's judges and prosecutors went on strike on ​Monday over staff shortages among their ranks, ​demanding that the state fill ‌the ​gap despite government efforts to shrink the budget deficit back to within the European Union's limit. As in many European countries, Austria's judiciary ‌is plagued by delays and backlogs as it struggles to cope with an ever growing number of cases. To draw attention to the problem, judges and prosecutors across the country have stopped handling non-urgent ‌matters this week.

"Stop! We simply can't take this anymore," Anna-Maria Wukovits, vice president of the ‌Austrian Prosecutors' Association, told a press conference marking the start of the protest week. "Prosecutors cannot go on like this. We are at our limit," she added.

Austria's national judges' association estimates there is currently a shortage of more than 250 ⁠judges ​nationally, while Wukowits told national ⁠broadcaster ORF that for prosecutors the figure is around 70. Workloads for prosecutors and judges have increased for various reasons, ⁠including ever more complex cases such as those involving cyber crimes, and many criminal complaints are now written using ​artificial intelligence but must then be reviewed manually by prosecutors, Wukowits said.

"Those often involve ⁠reams of pages that have to be read. One cannot ignore that," she said. While the justice ministry has expressed ⁠sympathy ​with the prosecutors and judges, it has said the government's current priority is reducing the budget deficit, which came in last year at 4.1% of economic output, well beyond the ⁠EU limit of 3%.

"The rule of law cannot be maintained in the long term only because ⁠judges work unpaid ⁠overtime. For years, our colleagues have been making up for structural staff shortages by working on evenings, weekends and even on holiday," Austrian Judges' Association ‌President Gerhard Karmuth ‌said in a statement.