Organisation development in court administration

www.irsig.cnr.it

Faculty of Law, Economics and Goverenance

prof. dr Philip Langbroek, p.m.langbroek at uu.nl

Court Administration in an international comparative

perspective• Why? • Courts exercise power

• Demands for more accountability

• Increased transparency and public criticism

• Timliness is a problem

• Logistics are not well developed

• Ethics are imperative

Court Administration: 2 structures

• Between courts and the political domain

• Between courts and the central court administration

Quality management and organisation development

• Relation between central court administration and local courts

• Organisation of feedback loops with society and stakeholders

• Combination of feedback loops and organisation accountability

Steering competences and ownership of information

• Judicial work will be affected by management

• Judges should accept to participate in management

• Demand for increasing flexibility on the shop floor

• Dominant Role of ICT’s and registries

• Trust means: respect each others’ domains of responsibilities and accept central inputs for organisation development

What remains: Ethics

• Courts and Judges are instances of last resort in conflict resolution.

• This functions only when its clients/customers trust the impartiality of the courts

• Everything courts and judges do in organisation and in case management and in public should be checked in advance against core values

Risks and Chances• Quality management info can

be used for political accountability purposes.

• Pushing for timeliness and consistency of judgments goes against professional autonomy but are inevitable aims to pursue.

• Quality management does not protect courts against media attacks.

• Act autonomously in public but in coordination with central court administrators

• Show and explain your societal relevance in public debates

• Move flexible with societal developments (e.g. neighborhood justice, knowledge development)