As an exclusive for ETV investigative show "Pealtnägija," several judges shared their personal struggles, even experiences of burnout — in both civil law and criminal law fields.

Criticizing the management and organization of the courts has not traditionally been considered an appropriate thing to do.

However, some judges are now breaking this unwritten rule, feeling their stress and workload have become unbearable.

Harju County Court judges Alan Biin and Merit Bobrõšev, two of Estonia's 250 or so judges, risk the condemnation of their colleagues by giving the interview to "Pealtnägija," but still did so.

"I won't deny that I've thought about switching jobs myself. Is this stress really worth it all? Perhaps I could cope better somewhere else," Biin, a civil law judge, said.

Bobrõšev, a criminal law judge, said: "It's the exhaustion. You keep working, working, and working, and you never see a moment when you will get to take a breath."

Harju County is the most populous region of the country and includes Tallinn.

Civil case judge Merit Helm, who previously worked as a sworn advocate for ten years, was appointed lifetime judge a decade ago.

She told the show: "All this work has to get done. And there's no way of saying that 'I have so many cases right now that I feel like I'm drowning in it' ... That option simply does not exist."

This is not helped by the harrowing nature of some cases, she added.

Helm described a custody case in which she had to decide that a child could no longer live with their mother and that the mother would lose custody.

"I still think about that child, even though it's been seven years now. I also think about the mother, as I understand that she was struggling too," Helm said.

"I would wake up at 4 a.m. then realize that I wouldn't be falling back to sleep again, as my mind was already in work mode," Helm recalled.

While a normal workload for a civil judge would be a couple of hundred rulings per year, in her "record" year, Helm authored around three times that, or over 600 decisions and rulings.

In addition to that, she was required to preside over hearings, meet with parties involved — including at psychiatric hospitals — and handle other ongoing legal matters.

"Ultimately, it was the deputy chief justice who came to me and said that if my own glass is half-empty, that makes it very hard to help others. Colleagues had already been saying that my 'glass' was so empty that I should talk to my family doctor about whether it made sense to continue working, or if I should take an extended leave of absence to recover in," Helm described.

Helm said that at that point, she was on the verge of burnout, yet managed to pull herself back from the brink just in time.

Burnout leads to disciplinary proceedings

Around the same time, Judge Biin was struggling with similar problems, in the same Harju courthouse.

The man whose job it is to resolve conflicts on behalf of others unwittingly became someone in need of help himself, it turned out.

Biin said: "I always had this feeling that I must work. Instead of resting at the weekend, I would tell my partner that we weren't going on any nature hikes, as I had to work on Saturday.

"Then Saturday morning swung round, but I just couldn't get out of bed to get to work and get things done. You just end up marinating in your own misery," Biin went on.

"You think you can get a handle on it, but you actually can't, and you're lying to yourself. It was always a case of 'mañana, mañana, I'll do it tomorrow.' I was too exhausted that day, so I promised myself I'd do things the next day. Then the next day, I was just as tired, or even worse. That's how things ebbed away," Biin recalled.

However, the Supreme Court's disciplinary panel didn't see it that way and found Biin culpable of negligence.

Eventually, in the spring of 2023, he had sought medical help and was diagnosed with burnout.

This matter became public in August of the same year when, after repeated warnings from the court's management and from the justice ministry, disciplinary proceedings were initiated, revealing the true extent of the problem.

By that time, many of Biin's cases had been ongoing for more than two years, in some instances four years, and in two cases, as long as 2,000 days — over five and a half years, in fact.

However, the Supreme Court's disciplinary panel found Biin guilty of failing to fulfill his official duties. The panel did take into account his sincerely expressed remorse and his health issues, meaning he received the lightest possible punishment — a reprimand.

Taking into account that there are more than 250 judges working in Estonia, a few isolated cases might seem a drop in the ocean. However, the issue is actually much broader, "Pealtnägija" reported.

Over an extended period of time, the show spoke with around a dozen judges, in the process hearing some surprisingly candid confessions, which reveal the extent to which many members of the judiciary have been pushed.

In 2021, the Estonian Judges' Association (Eesti Kohtunike Ühing) conducted a survey involving a total of 112 judges — nearly half of the total in Estonia. A concerning trend was found to be emerging even then, four years ago.

"For me, the biggest red flag was the number of judges who had considered quitting their posts due to workload issues. Nearly half of them. That is a huge number," association chair Anu Uritam said.

Some judges have already moved beyond just thinking about things and have made their decision.

For example, commercial and bankruptcy judge Kadi Kark, appointed by then-president Kersti Kaljulaid in 2019, told "Pealtnägija" that she lasted less than three years in office.

Kark said her perfectionism left her with no chance of rest, and in the end, she could not withstand this constant state of stress.

"I felt guilty whenever my work computer was out of sight," she said.

"For example, when visiting someone on a Saturday, I would think, 'Why am I here? I should be working!' I had that selfsame feeling during vacations, and at Christmas," she went on.

"No matter how much I got done, I always felt it wasn't enough or hadn't been done well enough," Kark added.

Judges going back to their old jobs

Kristjan Siigur, president of the second-tier Tallinn Circuit Court, acknowledged that a larger wave of judicial resignations may be inevitable.

Over the past six months, unusual patterns have emerged in the court system — such as had not been seen before. Highly qualified lawyers, newly appointed as judges, last only a few years before returning to their previous jobs, including in the law, and going back to being sworn advocates.

Particularly surprising is the turnover in second-tier courts, where previously judges only left for the Supreme Court or retirement.

At the end of last year, Tallinn Circuit Court civil judge Maris Kuurberg was one of the resignations; even during the compilation of the "Pealtnägija" segment, judge Neve Uudelt from the same department as Kuurberg submitted her resignation too.

Uudelt had been in office for three years, Kuurberg for just over two years.

While statistics show that Estonia statistically has one of the quickest-functioning judicial systems in the EU, dissatisfaction with delayed or botched proceedings is now widespread.

A striking example came when Supreme Court Chief Justice Villu Kõve appeared before the Riigikogu last June to report on the situation with the courts.

He faced a relentless grilling, primarily from opposition MPs.

Pressure has come from the executive branch too.

Merit Helm said: "I recall a meeting of the Court Administration Council in which a Ministry of Justice representative told chief justices to 'whip the judges harder, so that cases get resolved faster.'"

"And I honestly took this to heart because I was already working until 8–9 p.m. every evening, after starting in the morning. I worked at least one full weekend day every week. I couldn't understand how they expected me to be 'whipped' further — there was simply no more capacity to do even more work," she revealed.

Court-mandated revocation of fishing license an example of minor proceedings judges want to get rid of

In the end, it all comes down to money and costs, "Pealtnägija" found.

The first- and second-tier courts must cut €4.4 million from their budgets over the next three years.

Two courthouses will be closed this year, while there has been talk of laying off court clerks and secretaries in the coming years.

Anu Uritam said she believes that these cuts not only exacerbate previously mentioned problems but also call the sustainability of the entire Estonian court system into question.

Given Estonia's small taxpayer base and its geopolitically complex location, across-the-board budget cuts are inevitable, as they have been with the other two branches of power in the land.

As a consequence, the judiciary has begun considering alternative solutions.

"Our first step is to identify as many tasks as possible that have, for some reason, fallen under the court's responsibility but perhaps do not actually need to be handled by the courts," Siigur explained.

He cited by way of example a case where the Estonian Defense Resources Agency (KRA) had to obtain administrative court permission to suspend the fishing rights of a young man who had dodged the draft.

"Maybe that prior approval isn't really necessary, is it, and so on and so forth," Siigur put it.

The core of the news here is that "Pealtnägija" has obtained an internal memo from the Court Administration Council (Kohtute haldamise nõukoda) dated last December. In it, court representatives themselves gave principled approval to what seemed like some fairly radical ideas.

One of the most contentious and debated proposals is to merge the courts into one of each kind (Supreme Court aside), leaving Estonia with just one county court, one administrative court, and one circuit court, rather than multiple ones.

According to Siigur, consolidating the courts, removing less critical case types from the system, and even replacing certain work processes with artificial intelligence are, in the long run, inevitable.

At the same time, the first-tier judges who spoke with "Pealtnägija" likened that plan to treating a cold by doing spinal surgery.

Estonia's largest courthouse does not support the plan in its current form, either.

Uritam said: "These are all splendid, beautiful ideas. They are most welcome, and they may yet be implemented someday, but implementing any of them still necessitates financial resources."

Bobrõšev noted: "If we have fewer judges and additional organizational changes — such as if we don't have enough legal clerks or secretaries — then at some point, we just won't be able to manage with the system. We simply won't be able to process all these cases."

"Then again, as things stand today, I feel like the tipping point has already arrived," she added.

"Pealtnägija" reported that judges agree that Estonia's judicial system is in need of reform, yet the present proffered solutions do not seem to be promising.

The issue is not just one of work organization, but also of resources and the well-being of the judges themselves.

In front of the courts and going forward, then, are some major, far-reaching decisions to be made, which will impact the future of justice in Estonia.

Estonia's court system is organized along three tiers, with the Tartu-based Supreme Court occupying the apex, followed by the two circuit courts, in Tallinn (North) and Tartu (South). The first tier comprises two categories of court: The county courts, of which there are four, plus the two administrative courts.

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