Tag: resource dependence

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delay, extraordinary inefficiency, and basic injustice stemming from a lethal combination of judicial vacancies, outdated filing systems, and lax protocols for advancing cases to resolution.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”

What are interdependent courts?

Courts need resources from the external environment to survive, and in turn they contribute their own resource–the resolution of disputes through adjudication–to society.

“Interdependence is the reason why nothing comes out quite the way one wants it to.” —  Jeffrey Pfeffer and Gerald Salancik

It is a common refrain that the judiciary should be independent: judicial decisions should be fair, impartial, and not influenced by other branches of government or powerful interests.  But even courts that are independent in their legal decision making are not fully free from the influences of their environment.  Courts are resource-dependent: they rely on legislatures for funding, staffing, and jurisdictional authority.  They rely on attorneys for professional support and expertise.  They rely on prosecutors and the public to produce a steady stream of cases for the courts to resolve.  And they rely on all these groups for their most important resource: legitimacy.

In this sense, courts are more accurately described as interdependent.  They need resources from the external environment (organizations and people outside the court system) to survive, and in turn they contribute their own resource–the resolution of disputes through adjudication–to society.

This fact is both obvious and underappreciated.  Interdependence affects court structure, administration, organization, strategy, behavior, and external relationships.  The primary purpose of this blog is to highlight instances of court interdependence worldwide.  And we will try to test out some theories and refine our conclusions as we go along.