Tag: efficiency

Legislation introduced (again) to split the Ninth Circuit

In what has become almost an annual rite, a member of Congress has introduced a bill to split the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals into two. The new bill (S. 3259), proposed by Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan, would also add 57 new judgeships around the country, and would additionally give permanent status to eight existing temporary judgeships.

Senator Sullivan explained:

“In 1970, Chief Justice Warren Burger warned that ‘a sense of confidence in the courts is essential to maintain the fabric of ordered liberty for a free people,’ and cautioned that inefficiency and delay in our courts of appeals could destroy that confidence. Unfortunately, as it is currently constituted, the Ninth Circuit Court is inefficient, it delays, and therefore denies justice for millions of Americans. We cannot allow the confidence in our system of justice to be undermined by continuing a court of appeals that is so large and so unwieldy.”

The efficiency concerns are real, but this bill is probably going nowhere.

 

Japan: a land of many courts and relatively few judges

The Japan Times has an interesting article on the relatively small number of formal judges in that country, given its large number of courts. Japan has over 1,000 courts within its judicial hierarchy, but fewer than 4,000 total judges. And many of those judges have mostly administrative, as oppossed to courtroom, roles. That poses an challenging question for a country which works to take many cases to trial: how are there enough judges to hold all the trials guaranteed under the law?

The answer lies in a combination of (1) a broad network of judicial assistants, many of whom serve as shadow judges; and (2) resolving cases short of a full-blown trial. As the article explains:

How do they manage it? They get a lot of help; there are approximately 10,000 judicial clerks (shokikan) who play a key role in case management and documentation. Those with plenty of experience might well be called “magistrates” in that they effectively run some proceedings, such as bankruptcy and enforcement matters, where the need for formal judicial determinations of fact or law is limited. Some even end up as summary court judges.

In some family and civil proceedings, lawyers are also used as part-time “judges” (though they are not referred to by that term). Family and civil courts also rely on thousands of part-time conciliators from the neighboring community (including members of the local bar association) to help disputing parties arrive at mediated settlements. District courts also host labor tribunals that resolve labor cases using a mixed panel of a real judge and representatives of both sides of the employment relationship.

Still, most these proceedings are not “trials,” the right to which is supposedly guaranteed by Article 32 of the Constitution. In English, this bit of the charter appears to guarantee “the right of access to the courts,” but in Japanese it actually refers to “the right to a trial in a court.” That many cases are not actually trials is convenient because it means they can be resolved in closed proceedings (since constitutionally only “trials” must be conducted in open court) with fewer due-process protections.

Even when a case is or becomes a full-blown trial, it is not uncommon to hear lawyers complaining about judges cutting corners in civil cases to get them off their docket. This can often involve pressuring parties to settle. Some may be tempted to attribute this to cultural factors, but settlement is also just easier for judges — they don’t have to write a judgment or worry about being overturned on appeal.

The astute reader will identify many similarities to the current state of the American civil justice system, for better or for worse.

EU releases 2018 Justice Scoreboard

The European Union has released its 2018 Justice Scoreboard, which measures the judicial systems of its member countries against several broad measures of efficiency, judicial quality, and judicial independence. Key to the scorecard is the perception of justice among each country’s citizens; Croatia and Bulgaria did especially poorly in this area.

The full report can be found here. I may have more to say about the methodology and scoring after I have had a chance to digest the entire report.

A remarkable look inside India’s overburdened court system

The Wall Street Journal published a fascinating article yesterday on daily life at India’s largest courthouse, the Allahabad High Court. It tells a tale of extreme delay, extraordinary inefficiency, and basic injustice stemming from a lethal combination of judicial vacancies, outdated filing systems, and lax protocols for advancing cases to resolution. Among the facts presented in the article:

  • Nearly 45% of judicial positions on the court are unfilled, due in large part to an ongoing battle between the judiciary and the other branches of government about the most appropriate methods for judicial selection.
  • On average, it takes nearly four years to adjudicate a simple commercial dispute in India — twice as long as in Brazil and more than three times as long as in the United States.
  • More than 86% of high court cases in India take 10-15 years to adjudicate.  Fewer than 5% are resolved in less than five years.
  • The Allahabad High Court receives nearly 1,000 new cases every day.  Almost half are filed by the government.  Judges on the court even have a name for newly filed cases that have not even been looked at yet — “backlog fresh.”
  • It is so unpredictable which cases will be called on any given day that one lawyer profiled has associates spread out across all the courtrooms to track if — and when — any of his 34 open lawsuits on the court’s calendar might be taken up by a judge.
  • Even though rural litigants often have to travel a whole day to appear in court, it is commonplace that their cases will not be called and another day will be wasted.
  • The system encourages delay by allowing lawyers to file an “illness slip” to postpone a hearing, whether or not they are actually sick.
  • Case records are badly misfiled–piled on floors and chairs, and intermingled by year.  In the story, a worker searched eight hours for files for the next day’s cases, and was still missing 17 of 65 by day’s end.

This is a jaw-dropping account, the paragon of “justice delayed is justice denied.” What can we make of it?

Continue reading “A remarkable look inside India’s overburdened court system”

Jordanian King stresses judicial independence, competence, efficiency

Jordan’s King Abdullah has endorsed the recommendations of the Royal Committee for Developing the Judiciary and Enhancing the Rule of Law.

The King outlined the priorities of the council; namely, accelerating litigation and the execution of court rulings, establishing specialised courtrooms and better harnessing technology to serve the set goals of judicial reform.

His Majesty stressed that the economic and investment environment cannot be improved without an effective and independent judiciary.

He underlined the importance of supporting judges and improving their competence with continuous training.

Other Arab countries have similarly recognized in recent years that a stable and competent judicial system is critical to economic growth.  But it is one thing to support judicial independence and the rule of law in principle, and quite another to maintain those values in a challenging political climate.

Delaware courts embracing private sector management techniques

Buried in this story about the University of Delaware’s partnership with the state court system to create a fellows program for graduate students is a most interesting point:

In 2014, the judicial branch entered a 10-year partnership with the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics to improve court operations using private-sector techniques.

As part of the effort, many in the courts were trained in Lean Six Sigma, a methodology focused on removing waste from the processes. The courts said this helped save the judicial branch and partner agencies more than 4,250 staff hours.

Courts have been looking to private sector organizations for management techniques for  a century, when Chief Justice Taft began infusing the federal courts with “executive principle.” But until this story broke, I was admittedly unaware that Six Sigma techniques were being applied directly in state court systems.

More background on the court-university partnership is here.