latin american judicial systems: management and court administration
DESCRIPTION
Public policies on management and court administration in Latin AmericaTRANSCRIPT
Common cultural and historical heritage
Political system Three tiers of public power
Similar institutions and political dynamics Governance Increasing institutional stability Judicial independence
Judiciary Judicial career
LATIN AMERICA (LATAM)
Bureaucratic and cumbersome proceedings
Outdated (often artisanal) working methods
Informal delegation
Poor personnel policy and absence of incentive schemes
Lack of a training policy
No models of judicial offices
Inadequate infrastructure
Routine inspection tasks
Poor processing and use of statistical information
The role of lawyers is often distorting
GENERAL WEAKNESSES
Law careers provide a theoretical and abstract education
The role of the judge in a classic view is obsolete
Legal language is criptical and does not contribute to public trust building
ROOT CAUSES
Main Features: confusion between
Judicial and administrative activities
Judicial independence and management
AN OLD PARADIGM
A NEW PARADIGM
Justice as a System
Access to Justice: Diversity of pathways
Training: Continuing education
Management: Organization of the work, case management, leadership, teamwork and use of ICT
Administration: General operation of the system, judiciary, optimal use of resources, governance and strategic planning
Infrastructure: Physical environment, material and technological inputs
Regulations: Rules of organization and operation
Consensus Building: Awareness raising, dissemination and dialogue
Cooperation: Constant interaction
JUSTICE AS A SYSTEM
Access to Justice: Diversity of pathways
Training: Continuing education
Management Organization of the work, case management, leadership, teamwork and use of ICT
Administration: General operation of the system, judiciary, optimal use of resources, governance andstrategic planning
Infrastructure: Physical environment, material and technological inputs
Regulations: Rules of organization and operation
Consensus Building: Awareness raising, dissemination and dialogue
Cooperation: Constant interaction
ANDThe Judge in the Traditional Model
JUSTICE AS A SYSTEM
Access to Justice: Diversity of pathways
Training: Continuing education
Management Organization of the work, case management, leadership, teamwork and use of ICT
Administration: General operation of the system, judiciary, optimal use of resources, governance and strategic planning
Infrastructure: Physical environment, material and technological inputs
Regulations: Rules of organization and operation
Consensus Building: Awareness raising, dissemination and dialogue
Cooperation: Constant interaction
ANDThe Court Administrator
JUSTICE AS A SYSTEM
Criminal Judicial Offices, Chubut
Created for the implementation of the new Criminal Procedure Code
They handle: The management of processes, organization and
distribution of cases The determination of the dates and times of preliminary
hearings The assignment of cases to judges, scheduling trial
hearings
These tasks are executed with IT systems support
COURT ADMINISTRATION IN LATAMARGENTINA
Associated Judicial Management Model, Mendoza
It has been implemented with the goals of: Freeing the judges of administrative compliance and
functional tasks Optimizing judicial performance and accelerating the
processing time and disposition of cases
The Court Administrator position was created under the dependence of the state Supreme Court It coordinates the processing of cases of four former
civil, commercial and mining courts (plus 1)
COURT ADMINISTRATION IN LATAMARGENTINA
Public Prosecutor´s Office, City of Buenos Aires
New Design
1. Early Intervention Unit –UIT-: it takes action at the beginning of each case, evaluates and decides according to its characteristics
2. Common Processing Unit -UTC-: it acts in coordination with UIT and prosecutors teams. This structure centralizes and streamlines the tasks of research support
3. Prosecutors Teams: six prosecutors teams that are competent on criminal and misdemeanor offenses They conduct the investigations being freed from
administrative tasks and bureaucratic procedures
COURT ADMINISTRATION IN LATAMARGENTINA
New Criminal Procedure
Separation between judicial and administrative activities
New courts, public prosecutors office and public defenders
Professionalized administrative support
Transparency
Coordination and institutional commitment
Permanent monitoring
Periodic evaluation
COURT ADMINISTRATION IN LATAMCHILE
Mega Offices
Unification or merger of judicial offices devoted to the same matters
Division of other offices aimed to specialization Unification of proceedings and concentration of
cases of the same matter Increase of ways of access to judicial information Common offices Administration of the circuit Notifications Reception of documents Recordkeeping Internal mail
COURT ADMINISTRATION IN LATAMCOSTA RICA
Integrated Judicial Model, San Salvador and Soyapango
Physical integration of courts in a geographic area
Administrative integration: operation of common specialized branches responsible for the administrative and legal work of the courts Focus of persons in strictly legal-judicial activities,
seeking specialization of civil servants and greater agility, process quality and resolutions
Administrative-legal work assigned to specialized offices
Design, development and implementation of a system for processing information
Staff training
COURT ADMINISTRATION IN LATAMEL SALVADOR
During almost 16 years, training in case management More than 150 courses in LATAM
Practical training through workshops Participants learn to solve by themselves those
organizational and functioning problems they identify in their workplaces
COURT ADMINISTRATION IN LATAMA PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
Positive and encouraging results Participants often introduce beneficial changes Changes reflect the commitment and actual
interest to improve the quality of justice
Work mainly aimed to Achieve improvements in the context of
prevailing models Promote a discussion about the need for further
reforms Build consensus to carry out a cultural change
towards a deeper modernization
COURT ADMINISTRATION IN LATAMA PERSONAL EXPERIENCE
Study of judicial systems
Identification Best practices Related court models
Focused interviews Court administrators Policy makers Judges Judicial officers Academics
COURT ADMINISTRATION IN LATAMAN APPLIED RESEARCH
Focused interviews Understanding of the confusion of judicial and
administrative work as a mean of judges to keep power
Judges cultural resistance to a change towards court administration Potential tension between judges and court
administrators
Common agreement on the necessity of Immediate improvement of management techniques Dissemination Consensus building Participation Gradual designing and implementation of new court
models
COURT ADMINISTRATION IN LATAMAN APPLIED RESEARCH
Training in case management and consensus building helps to improve the functioning of the administration of justice through stakeholders participation
The organization and functioning of judicial management models based on the separation of judicial and administrative activity, contributes to improving the administration of justice
COURT ADMINISTRATION IN LATAMAN APPLIED RESEARCH
Dialogue and participation
WIIFM (What´s In It For Me)
Think win-win Vision Empathy
Empathic communication Emotional Intelligence (EI)
Sinergy “In political arithmetic, two and two do not always
make four” (Alexander Hamilton) Leadership and Teamwork
A STRATEGY FOR IMPROVEMENT
Leadership and teamwork (Richard Foster) Common sense of purpose Establishing of expectations Defining the processes of partnership and activities Building of mutual trust Setting of rules for communication within and
outisde the partnership Identification of staff members who can work with
different organisational cultures
Dissemination and consensus building Within and outside the judicial community
Strategic planning Short, middle and long term goals and results
A STRATEGY FOR IMPROVEMENT
IACA, 1st Conference in LATAM, May 2013
E-Justicia Latinoamérica
Strategic partnership with IACA
Networking with International Network ofJurists for the American Integration (RIJIA)
E-Justicia 1st International Conference,Buenos Aires, 2015
DISSEMINATION AND CONSENSUS BUILDING
Consolidation of governance, rule of law and institutional stability contributes to the sustainability of the changes
Growing importance of management and court administration
A sustainable modernization will only be achieved if it´s based on awareness and proactivity of the members of the judiciary
Consensus building and interaction withcivil society
CONCLUSIONS AND PERSPECTIVES
To realize
To want
To find a way
Intelligence, organization, method… and results
THREE MOMENTS
“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm”
(Ralph Waldo Emerson)