the speed of justice dakar regional court, senegal
DESCRIPTION
Impact Evaluation Concept Note. Florence Kondylis Mamadou Lo Mandiogou Ndiaye Mattea Stein Souleymane Teliko. The Speed of Justice Dakar Regional Court, Senegal. Background. Assumption: The speed of justice affects demand for legal resolution of business disputes the business climate - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Global Workshop onDevelopment Impact Evaluation
in Finance and Private SectorRio de Janeiro, June 6-10, 2011
The Speed of JusticeDakar Regional Court, Senegal
Florence KondylisMamadou LoMandiogou NdiayeMattea SteinSouleymane Teliko
Impact Evaluation Concept Note
Background
Assumption: The speed of justice affects demand for legal resolution of business
disputes the business climate
Problem: No evidence on how to increase speed of
justice No direct evidence on what this impact
is at the firm levelThe Reform Unit of the MoJ in
Senegal is working with DIME to get answers
Intervention Summary
Treatment Delay Reminders Increase salience of information on treatment delays
for the various actors <<>> identified bottlenecks▪ President of chambers▪ Pre-trial Judges▪ Clerks (greffiers)
Increase treatment speedMeasure impact of variation in speed at the firm level
Does it work at scale (when all cases are subject to reminder pop-ups?)Test on larger set of cases (Commercial and Civil)
using regression discontinuity design (RDD)
Evaluation Questions
Can a simple personnel economics intervention increase the speed of justice? Why? [Perception of increased scrutiny vs. planning tool, etc]▪ Run qualitative judge interviews before/after roll out to try to get at the
channels of impact▪ [Testing impact of paper-based version of the same intervention would be
the “ideal” test. Not feasible: too few judges.] Can a decrease in treatment delays have an impact at the
firm level? Survival of the firm Decision to invest, employ, expand Perception of justice system and demand for legal resolution of
business disputes (through series of hypothetical situations) What is the potential for this type of interventions to
improve the business climate?
Evaluation Design
Unit of intervention: Court case (Total: 1,800)
Random assignment: 900 treated: appear in pop-up windows 900 control: do not appear in any pop-up
windowsCourt actors received pop-ups:
All president of chambers (manage judges)
All pre-trial judges All clerks▪ Only cases they are in charge of appear
in their pop-ups
Pop-Up Chambre President 1/2
Pop-Up Chambre President 2/2
Pop-Up Clerk 1/2
Pop-Up Clerk 2/2
Pop-Up Pre-trial Judge 1/2
Pop-Up Pre-trial Judge 2/2
Sampling and Data
Court-level data: Administrative data collected directly through the
court software (all agents enter the various treatment steps into an interface)▪ Date of entry and dates of various steps entered >>
compute duration and speed▪ Identify firms for tracking in the firm-level survey
Firm-level data: 2 planned rounds of survey collection▪ One at the outset▪ One 1 year later
Issue of censoring: not all cases will be completed over the period of the trial >> use duration models
Thank you!