Challenge of Change for Judicial Systems Developing a Public Administration Perspective

Throughout Europe, judicial systems are under an increasing societal and political strain to increase the speed of proceedings, to improve their organisational functioning, and to pay attention to the media and the public. As a consequence European governments have recognised the necessity to invest in their judicial systems, since they perform a growing role in the democratic life and an essential task in upholding the rule of law (rechtsstaat). Programs have been developed to adjust judicial proceedings in the administrative, civil and criminal domains. However, in order to enable courts to meet the new political and societal demands, the judicial institutions will have to re-think their institutional set-up as well as to improve the way in which their work is organised. This difficult challenge of change can not be left only to the juridical professionals that traditionally have the domain on judicial systems. The contribution of public administration scholars will be important to develop a body of knowledge that can endorse this challenge and combine insights from different perspectives.This collection wants to stimulate further developments of public administration studies in the field of justice. It contains contributions from Belgium, England, France, Greece, Italy and from the Netherlands. These contributions describe various attempts that have been made in the different countries to cope with the increasing political and societal demands to the justice system. They reveal many existing tensions between traditional legal professional values, in particular judicial independence, and pressures to increase productivity and effectiveness of the work of the courts and public prosecutors' offices. Accountability and legitimacy of the courts are at stake here as well. Attention is also being paid to the consequences of the introduction of Information and Communication Technologies in judicial organisations.Langbroek, P. M. is the author of 'Challenge of Change for Judicial Systems Developing a Public Administration Perspective' with ISBN 9781586030629 and ISBN 1586030620.