Four current signals
| System and period | Published measure | Interpretation |
|---|---|---|
| India district and subordinate courts, 27 Mar 2026 | 5,256,293 cases pending for more than 10 years | Age-specific national total, not all pending cases |
| England and Wales Crown Court, 31 Dec 2025 | 80,098 open cases | Live cases with at least one incomplete offence |
| U.S. federal district courts, FY 2025 | 432,923 pending civil cases | Federal civil cases, not state courts |
| Brazil, Justice in Numbers 2024 | 26.4 million pending tax enforcement cases | One high-volume class highlighted by CNJ |
These figures are intentionally not added together. The units, court levels, case types and dates are different.
Why comparison is difficult
A system may count defendants, claims, filings, proceedings or cases. Suspended matters may remain in one denominator and leave another. A falling pending total can reflect higher dispositions, lower filings, reclassification or data cleaning. Population-adjusted rates help with scale but still do not capture case complexity.
What the data can support
Country data is useful for locating a bottleneck and testing a focused intervention. India publishes age bands that reveal very old cases. The UK open caseload series allows time comparison. U.S. federal statistics separate filings, terminations and pending cases. Brazil highlights tax enforcement as a major source of congestion.
Read the country notes for India, the United Kingdom, the United States and Brazil.
Research standard
We record the source body, publication date, reference period, measure and court scope. When a live dashboard changes, we avoid silently replacing the historical figure. Corrections are logged through the editorial process described in Methodology.