Decisions by district courts in criminal cases

These statistics on criminal cases describe criminal cases instigated and decided by district courts during the year by district court and type of case. As a rule a criminal case is instigated when the prosecutor presents a written application for a summons to the office of a district court. In certain exceptions the prosecutor may also present the summons personally and the case is instigated when the defendant is informed about the summons. The biggest group of criminal cases handled by district courts are traffic offences, almost half of them cases of aggravated drunken driving, followed by offences against property.