latin american judicial systems: management and court administration

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Outdated (often artisanal) working methods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The role of the judge in a classic view is obsolete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



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





ANDThe Judge in the Traditional Model

JUSTICE AS A SYSTEM



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





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)


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


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


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


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)

Thank you!

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latin american judicial systems: management and court administration

Leadership & Management