ABSTRACT
The public trust in judicial authorities in many European countries has been a source of concern for quite some time now. As regards criminal courts and prisons, it has been observed that these ‘low-visibility areas’ of the criminal justice system receive the lowest confidence and satisfaction ratings from the general public (Nicholas et al., in Almond 2008). The latest Eurobarometer to record inter alia the trust in national justice systems showed that while in five Member States (DK, FI, SE, AT and NL) more than two-thirds of the public trusted the justice system, in six countries (in BG, LT, SI, RO, PT and SK) less than a third of the public expressed this trust (Eurobarometer 2010).2
