The politics of judicial reform (original) (raw)
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Ciências e Políticas Públicas / Public Sciences & Policies, 2019
We sought to analyze the interaction of the CNJ with state courts in the quest for improved efficiency in State Justice from 2004 to 2013 from the perspective of former members of the CNJ. The questions to be answered were: How have the efforts and actions of the state courts adapted to the requirements of the CNJ in order to improve the efficiency of jurisdictional provision? To what extent has there been a convergence of efforts and achievements between the CNJ and the State Courts to order to improve efficiency? Twenty former members of the CNJ were interviewed, and thematic analysis was used as the content analysis technique. The categories established for analysis were related to the predominance of divergence (distrust and resistance), the predominance of convergence (acceptance and integration) and the alternation of scenarios (relativism and context of autonomy). Respondents pointed to a convergence of efforts which gained strength to the extent to which ignorance and mistrust relating to the CNJ were gradually dissipated.
The Organization of Administrative Justice Systems: The Role of Political Mistrust
2006
In Total Justice (1985), legal historian Lawrence M. Friedman outlines a dramatic shift in the legal culture of economically advanced democracies over the last century and a quarter. He argues that in tandem with unparalleled increases in societal wealth, technological sophistication, and governmental capacity, citizens have become less fatalistic about the hazards and injustices of life. They have developed a generalized expectation that modern societies now have the ability to reduce the risks and impact of impoverishment, disease, injury, environmental degradation, crime, discrimination, and economic instability. If these things can be done, people come to believe, governments should make they are done. In competitive democracies, political leaders respond to such expectations. So decade after decade, governments conduct studies, hold hearings, enact more laws, create more rights, regulate more risks, extend legal liability to more sources of harm, and spend more money on social benefit programs. One consequence has been the proliferation of specialized government agencies charged with implementing the policies of the administrative-regulatory state. Today, the bulk of official legal decisions are made not by judges but by "eligibility workers" processing files in welfare and unemployment insurance offices, by regulatory inspectors and tax auditors, by licensing officials, immigration officers, and assorted other bureaucrats. At the same time, however, the agencies created to fulfill demands for total justice come under criticism for failing to do so, or for acting arbitrarily and unjustly themselves. Administrative officials are squeezed between public expectations for "total justice" and, on the other side, by never-fully-adequate funding and the inevitable pathologies of bureaucracy. Hence administrative agencies repeatedly are investigated, studied, reorganized, expanded, downsized, reviewed by courts, and subjected to new legal mandates.
Constructing Courts: Judicial Institutional Change Embedded in Larger Political Dynamics
Tulsa Law Review, 2013
In 1962, legal scholar Alexander Bickel published The Least Dangerous Branch, which subsequently defined the boundaries of scholarship on the federal judiciary, particularly on the Supreme Court, for decades. 1 Bickel viewed the popular and elected-branch hostilities toward the Warren Court, which characterized the judicial politics at the time of his writing, as a consequence of the unelected branch's structural deviance in a democracy. 2 Indeed, The Least Dangerous Branch builds on a foundational supposition defining American political institutions, namely that they were designed so that, in James Madison's famous words, "[a]mbition must be made to counteract ambition." 3 Following the logic of separated powers meant to check and balance one another, a counter-majoritarian court-an institution
Reforming Federal Judiciary in the USA
Cleveland-Marshall College of Law , 2021
This paper examines the need for potential reforms within the federal judiciary of the United States. It explores arguments for and against changes to the current system, focusing on areas such as the structure of the Supreme Court, the selection and accountability of judges, and ensuring access to justice for all. The paper analyzes the potential impact of various reform proposals and aims to contribute to a productive discussion about strengthening the federal judiciary in the USA.