Abstract
Court management may be defined as the administration inside the court and outside the case. It is inside the courts, so court management does not concern the general administration of justice (which is within the purview of the Ministry of Justice, judicial councils, etc.). It is outside the cases, so court management does not deal with the administration of cases, the so-called case management. Yet, these three fields belong to the same category of judicial management or judicial administration, and there is some overlapping and even confusion especially between national judicial management, court management and case management.
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Notes
- 1.
See Chilean Report.
- 2.
See Chilean Report.
- 3.
See Chilean Report.
- 4.
Here is a list, with titles and email addresses, of the national reporters. German Report: Professor Christoph Kern, University of Heidelberg, christoph.kern@ipr.uni-heidelberg.de; Spanish Report: Dr Marco de Benito, marco.debenito@ie.edu, Professor of Law, IE University, Madrid; Indian Report: Professor Yashomati Gosh, National Law School University in Bangalore, yashomati@nls.ac.in; Chilean Report: Pablo Bravo-Hurtado, Maastricht University, the Netherlands, pablo.bravohurtado@maastrichtuniversity.nl and Ramón García Odgers, Catholic University of Concepción, Chile (this national reporter would like to attend the conference in November); Benin Report: Joseph Akuesson, Doctor, University Paris 1 and University of Abomey Calavi (Benin), akuessont@yahoo.fr; Algerian Report: Mostapha Maouene, Professor at the University Djilali Liabès - Sidi bel abbès, maouene_mostefa@yahoo.fr; United States Report: Etienne Nedellec (after a research project carried out in the United States), PhD Student at the University of Paris 1, etiennenedellec@gmail.com; Dutch Report: Chantal Mahe, Lecturer, University of Amsterdam, c.b.p.mahe@vu.nl; Argentinian Report: Leandro Gianini, Professor, University La Plata Buenos Aeres, lgiannini@gmail.com; England and Wales Report: Gar Yein Ng, Doctor, University of Utrecht (expert in English law), G.Ng@law.uu.nl; Singapore Report: Yap Cai Ping (Ms), Assistant Director, Legal Policy Division, Ministry of Justice, YAP_Cai_Ping@Mlaw.gov.sg; Russian Report: Professor Svetlana K. Zagaynova, Ural State Law University, usla.mediator@gmail.com; French Report: Emmanuel Jeuland; Polish Report: Bartosz Karolczyk, Lawyer, Warsaw, bkarolczyk@law.gwu.edu and Kinga Flaga-Gieruszyńska, kingaflaga@gmail.com, dr hab. Kinga Flaga-Gieruszynska, prof. US, Head of the Chamber of Civil Procedure, Faculty of Law and Administration, University of Szczecin, Poland.
- 5.
I would like to thank Antonio Cabral for his very interesting insights on the Brazilian system.
- 6.
I would like to thank Magnus Stranberg for his very interesting insights on the Norwegian system. The organization of the tribunal is very flexible and may vary; in case of backlogs, temporary judges may be hired (which raises the question of potential conflicts of interest, since these judges, hired for 6 or 12 months, may have worked for private companies and could return to private companies afterwards). The assistants of judges (usually after University) may adjudicate a case, even a criminal case, on their own.
- 7.
I would like to thank Florian Roger for the information he provided on the Belgian system.
- 8.
1.What is the conception of court management in your country? Is there a difference between court management and administration of the tribunal?
2. What are the roles of the court staff (judges, prosecutors, assistants, clerks, judicial officers, mediators, etc.) as far as management of the court is concerned?
3. What are the relationships among them (judges, prosecutors, assistants, clerks, judicial officers, mediators, etc.) as far as management of the court (competition of power, diarchy between judges and public prosecutors, between court managers and the head of the judges)?
4. What are the interactions on a day-to-day basis between court staff as far as management is concerned? Are there frequent meetings, for example?
5. Staff Management and Judicial Independence: Who manages: the head of the judges of the jurisdiction, the head of the court clerks, the public attorney? Who manages what: real estate of the tribunal building, maintenance of the building, new technology, security of the building, human resources, communications? Does the organization allow the judge to remain independent (e.g. workload objectives, indicators)?
6. Allocation of the cases and Appointment of the Judges (professional judges, lay judges, etc.). Is it a unilateral allocation of the cases made by the head of the tribunal or is there a commission, which allocates the cases to the judges and divisions of the tribunal? Are there objective criteria to allocate cases (name of parties, number of the case, subject matter, etc.)?
7. Evaluation, Accountability and Responsibility of judges and courts: What is the impact of bonuses, assessments, statistics, disciplinary sanctions in case of failure to meet the objectives?
8. Economic Budget of the Courts and the Justice System: What is the national budget of the justice system? What is the budget of a small, medium and large court? The different parts of the budget: for the jails, the courts, the national school, etc.?
9. Is there a concern about the emotions of the court staff (threats, security, etc.)? If so, how is this issue tackled? (Is there a special group composed of doctors, psychologists and other people, or a commission on hygiene and security?)
10. Is there a general assembly, a governing council (composed of staff and stakeholders, such as a bar representative, a media representative, a city hall representative in the court)?
11. Is there compulsory or voluntary planning for several years in the courts? If yes, who is responsible for initiating and carrying out the plan?
- 9.
Martin (2014, p. 5). In France, the equivalent word cour is still used for the court of appeal and the Court of Cassation.
- 10.
Graham (1993, pp. 3–25).
- 11.
Langbroek (2017).
- 12.
Damaška (1986).
- 13.
Damaška also divided systems between those which implement public policy and those which are dispute-solving. I am not sure that this distinction may be used on the topic of court administration.
- 14.
Jacob (2014).
- 15.
The system of justice is not decentralized in England and Wales. In the United States, there are differences depending on the state between a centralized or decentralized system, with sometimes after unification a period of decentralization even at the federal level: see Gazell (1993, pp. 79–97).
- 16.
Martin (2014, p. 17).
- 17.
Valente v the Queen, [1985] 2 SCR 673.
- 18.
In France, there may be directors of law clerk’s offices who prefer management to adjudication of cases, but it is a new trend.
- 19.
Through the movement Law and Emotion, on the growing importance of the topic of emotion in law, see Grossi (2015, pp. 55–60); see as well concerning the emotions of court staff as a terra nova Maroney (2012, pp. 481–488): ‘If we were to look at the legal decision-makers whose emotions really matter most, and most frequently, I think we would be looking at judges, clerks, prosecutors, defense attorneys, civil litigators, mediators, police officers, probation officers, court room deputies, expert witnesses, legislators and so on.’
- 20.
The gap in salary between judges and staff is very important. This gap may result in tension between the two.
- 21.
Martin (2014, p. 5).
- 22.
Arrears Committee 1990.
- 23.
On this different etymology see Hoad (1996, p. 279).
- 24.
See Argentinian Report.
- 25.
See German Report.
- 26.
In Norwegian, the word management is not used in courts; ledelse, close to leadership, or styring, close to steering, are used along with admistrasjon, in a practical sense the day-to-day running of the court.
- 27.
Interview at the National Center for State Courts (NCSC).
- 28.
For example, the chief judge can take back a case from a judge who is not sufficiently diligent: Is this action part of the case management or the court management?
- 29.
See German, Chilean and Argentinian Reports.
- 30.
Handcock (2014).
- 31.
NCSC, Judicial administration, individual courts.
- 32.
See Argentinian Report.
- 33.
See Chilean Report.
- 34.
Vargas (2006, p. 79).
- 35.
Wittrek (2006, pp. 16–18).
- 36.
See German Report.
- 37.
Beware, it is a false friend, since there are no civil procedural rules in this text.
- 38.
Different arrangements at different levels, e.g. sheriffs, but outsourced.
- 39.
See Dutch Report.
- 40.
Judiciary of England and Wales (2016, pp. 30–31).
- 41.
See Argentinian Report.
- 42.
Alavazi del Frate (1999).
- 43.
See England and Wales Report.
- 44.
Shetreet and Forsyth (2011, pp. 496–497).
- 45.
See Argentinian Report.
- 46.
On the debate between the natural judge versus workload calculus see in Switzerland, Lienhard and Kettinger (2016, pp. 62–79).
- 47.
See German Report.
- 48.
See Argentinian Report.
- 49.
See Dutch Report.
- 50.
See Indian Report.
- 51.
See details in the Argentinian Report.
- 52.
See Polish Report.
- 53.
See England and Wales Report.
- 54.
See Hungarian Report.
- 55.
See Spanish Report.
- 56.
See Indian Report.
- 57.
See in the Bibliography the relational approach of organization and law.
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Jeuland, E. (2023). Towards a New Court Management?. In: Cadiet, L., Fu, Y. (eds) On Judicial Management from Comparative Perspective. Contemporary Chinese Civil and Commercial Law. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-8673-4_4
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