The community involvement of courts: an action research study in the context of the Polish justice system

Abstract

Purpose As a rule, common courts are hermetic organizations, separated from their stakeholders by procedures based on legal provisions. For these reasons, they are often perceived as unreliable and non-transparent, and as such, they do not inspire trust among stakeholders. The authors posit that the court’s community involvement may lead to the increased accountability and legitimacy of courts, which should in turn result in jurisprudence benefits. This paper discusses the concept of community involvement of courts, demonstrates how this idea may be implemented and explains its benefits for courts. Design/methodology/approach The results of an action research study undertaken between June 2013 and March 2018 at the Regional Court in Gdansk (Poland) are discussed. Findings The results highlight factors underlying the implementation of the idea of community involvement, as well as the areas in which courts take these actions, and explain how it influences their accountability and legitimacy. This research describes the interests of different stakeholders and proposes a range of actions that may be taken by courts while cooperating with stakeholders to achieve the aims of community involvement. It also proposes a set of steps that enable courts to implement the idea of community involvement. Originality/value This paper develops the idea of the community involvement of courts, which may be used as an operating rule for public institutions to increase their legitimacy and accountability and explain its introduction in the context of courts. It offers a universal framework for the community involvement of courts that can be used in the context of any court in both the continental and Anglo-Saxon systems.

Strengthening accountability and sustainability reporting: does stakeholder engagement really work? Evidence from the judicial sector

“…Furthermore, concerning the extent of engagement, previous studies pointed out there was little evidence of higher levels of engagement, whereas most practices limit it to informing (Kaur and Lodhia, 2017; Frost et al , 2012; Greco et al , 2015). In this vein, the practice developed by the investigated office should still be interpreted as a – first – good achievement in the SE journey, above all, taking into account that it is a public, judicial organisation, where these practices are even less widespread (Banasik et al , 2022).…”

“…Firstly, it provides some original insights for the two main literature streams in which it fits, i. e. the SE in SR and the SEAR in PSOs, by focusing on an under-investigated topic (SE) in an under-investigated public context (the judicial sector). To the best of the authors' knowledge, only one study (Banasik et al, 2022) focuses on SE within this sector but not on SR. The judicial sector tends to be a relatively closed organisation and not very open to innovation, making the scope of the SE and our study more innovative.…”

“…This question seems to be posed equally provocatively also in the judicial sector, where innovative management processes in court administration are creating the cultural and organisational prerequisites for sustainability accounting and reporting. Moreover, the justice black box, made up of hermetic organisations, represents an empirical setting where studies on SE are still isolated and recent cases (Banasik et al , 2022). In this context, SE is framed as an “energy exchange” (p. 1220) between organisation and stakeholders, not easy to implement due to the difficulty of observing benefits in the short term.…”

“…Among them, the judicial sector, about which there is still little knowledge. Some studies have been carried out, mainly focused on Italy, where there has been a fair diffusion of the tool, initially as a result of public incentives (Ricci and Fusco, 2016); whereas, to the best of our knowledge, the studies carried out in other countries are limited (Banasik et al , 2022). Although some beneficial effects on internal and external accountability have been highlighted (Ricci and Pavone, 2020), extant literature stressed several weaknesses and criticalities in current practices, also due to poor understanding of the tool, a lack of resources (human and/or economic) or difficulties in using or adapting existing models (Fusco et al , 2022; Ricci and Pavone, 2022).…”