Judicial Reform

Courts in a transition economy: Case disposition and the quantity–quality tradeoff in Bulgaria

“…9 This rationale, grounded in a simple production function model of courts, has underpinned a variety of court reform efforts worldwide (see, e.g., Buscaglia and Dakolias 1999;Botero et al 2003, Hammergren 2007, Decker et al 2011. Empirical literature, however, casts doubt on whether court effectiveness can indeed be increased through an increase in court resources (Botero et al 2003).…”

“…9 This rationale, grounded in a simple production function model of courts, has underpinned a variety of court reform efforts worldwide (see, e.g., Buscaglia and Dakolias 1999;Botero et al 2003, Hammergren 2007, Decker et al 2011. Empirical literature, however, casts doubt on whether court effectiveness can indeed be increased through an increase in court resources (Botero et al 2003). Beenstock and Haitovsky (2004) and Dimitrova-Grajzl et al (2012a), for example, do not find a statistically significant effect of judicial staffing on court output in Israel and Slovenia, respectively.…”

“…Rigorous empirical evidence on the performance of post-socialist courts based on original court data (Murrell 2001;Hendley 2004Hendley , 2005Gadiuta 2012, Dimitrova-Grajzl et al 2012a, as opposed to indirect, survey-based evidence (e.g., Hendley et al 2000, Johnson et al 2002, Djankov et al 2003a, Pyle 2006, Koford and Miller 2006, is particularly scarce. 1 Systematic, empirically-grounded analysis of courts can provide valuable input into ongoing discourse about the design and reform of judicial systems (see, e.g., Messick 1999, Botero et al 2003, Stephenson 2007. From the policymaking standpoint, the overall lack of empirical studies on the post-socialist judiciaries is worrisome since by year 2005, in transition countries "less overall progress [had] been made in judicial reform and strengthening than in almost any other area of policy or institutional reform" (Anderson et al 2005: 57).…”

Intersubjective Meaning and Collective Action in 'fragile' societies: Theory, Evidence and Policy Implications

“…Taking this logic one step further, given that individuals are not agents in the contestation and definition of institutions, the success of these inputs and outputs can be measured (if we presume a methodological individualism and a stylized public choice approach to policy) based on the choice to use these institutions: in other words, individuals can be consumers but do not (re-)define the institution through social practice. As a result, for some theory (and the donor practice it influences), competition is king: Botero et al (2003) adopt such an approach to present a model of judicial reform, for example, that argues for "incentive-oriented reform… to increase accountability, competition and choice" between legal institutions and between judges; this is reiterated by Cabrillo and Fitzpatrick (2008: 58) and extended to the provision of legal services (232). At the level of practice, Barendrecht and de Vries (2005) highlight ADR -including non-state justice systems -as a means to foster "innovation" and generate healthy competition in the market for legal services.…”

Asian Socialism and Legal Change : The dynamics of Vietnamese and Chinese Reform

“…Berkowitz et al (2003) argue similarly, for the importance of successful localisation. Botero et al (2003) reflect modern scepticism about the arguments over the implications of simple economic theory and the links between policy and performance, and can be read as suggesting that any particular causal links posited are not likely to be robust.…”