OBJECTIVE Building on recent suggestions that there are, thus far, unnoticed levels of increased polarization and decreased perceived legitimacy of the judiciary within the Netherlands, we studied the experiences of self-represented litigants in early stages of Dutch small claims procedures. Our objective was to assess by means of qualitative interviews (a) whether litigants would mention experiences of perceived procedural justice during these court procedures and, (b) if so, what elements of perceived procedural justice they would mention, (c) how they form judgments of trust in judges, and (d) whether interviewees would mention spontaneously that in these early stages of court procedures, with limited information available, they do not know (yet) whether they perceive a judge as fair or can trust a judge handling their case. RESEARCH QUESTION What role, if any, do judgments of procedural justice, trust in judges, and informational uncertainty play in early stages of civil procedures? METHOD We held 115 interviews with self-represented litigants about their experiences with prehearings in Dutch small claims procedures. We asked respondents in various ways about procedural justice and trust in judges. We coded whether litigants mentioned spontaneously that they did not have enough information to answer these questions. RESULTS Respondents mentioned procedural fairness perceptions spontaneously when asked directly about fair treatment and when interviewed about specific procedural justice components. Interestingly, almost half of the respondents indicated that they did not have an opinion about at least one procedural justice component. When asked about trust in judges, various respondents also indicated that they did not have an opinion yet. CONCLUSIONS These results suggest that (a) perceived procedural justice matters to self-represented litigants in civil procedures, and (b) in early stages of court procedures, people may not know whether they perceive a judge as fair or can trust judges and may indicate this spontaneously in interviews. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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“我对此还没有意见”：荷兰小额索赔程序早期阶段自我代理诉讼人感知程序正义的定性研究。


目标 基于最近的建议，即迄今为止荷兰司法机构的两极分化加剧和感知合法性降低的程度尚未被注意到，我们研究了自我代理诉讼人在荷兰小额索赔程序早期阶段的经验。我们的目标是通过定性访谈来评估 （a） 诉讼当事人是否会提及在这些法庭程序中感知到的程序公正的经验，以及 （b） 如果是，他们会提到感知到的程序公正的哪些要素，（c） 他们如何形成对法官的信任判断，以及 （d） 受访者是否会自发地提及在法庭程序的早期阶段， 由于可用的信息有限，他们（还）不知道他们是否认为法官是公平的，或者是否可以信任处理他们案件的法官。研究问题 程序公正的判决、对法官的信任和信息不确定性在民事诉讼的早期阶段发挥什么作用（如果有的话）？方法 我们对自我代理的诉讼当事人进行了 115 次访谈，了解他们在荷兰小额索赔程序中进行听证会的经历。我们以各种方式询问了受访者关于程序公正和对法官的信任。我们对诉讼当事人是否自发地提到他们没有足够的信息来回答这些问题进行了编码。结果 当被直接询问公平待遇和被采访有关具体的程序正义组成部分时，受访者自发地提到了程序公平的看法。有趣的是，近一半的受访者表示他们对至少一个程序正义组成部分没有意见。当被问及对法官的信任时，不同的受访者也表示他们还没有意见。 结论 这些结果表明，（a） 在民事诉讼程序中，自我代理的诉讼人认为程序正义很重要，以及 （b） 在法院程序的早期阶段，人们可能不知道他们是否认为法官是公平的或可以信任法官，并可能在访谈中自发地表明这一点。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 （c） 2025 APA，保留所有权利）。