Envisioning Reform: Conceptual and Practical Obstacles to Improving Judicial Performance in Latin AmericaJudicial reform became an important part of the agenda for development in Latin America early in the 1980s, when countries in the region started the process of democratization. Connections began to be made between judicial performance and market-based growth, and development specialists turned their attention to “second generation” institutional reforms. Although considerable progress has been made already in strengthening the judiciary and its supporting infrastructure (police, prosecutors, public defense counsel, the private bar, law schools, and the like), much remains to be done. Linn Hammergren’s book aims to turn the spotlight on the problems in the movement toward judicial reform in Latin America over the past two decades and to suggest ways to keep the movement on track toward achieving its multiple, though often conflicting, goals. After Part I’s overview of the reform movement’s history since the 1980s, Part II examines five approaches that have been taken to judicial reform, tracing their intellectual origins, historical and strategic development, the roles of local and international participants, and their relative success in producing positive change. Part III builds on this evaluation of the five partial approaches by offering a synthetic critique aimed at showing how to turn approaches into strategies, how to ensure they are based on experiential knowledge, and how to unite separate lines of action. |
From inside the book
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... additional problem for anyone writing about the region is the rapid pace at which legally mandated procedures and organizational structures change or the fact that so many legal changes remain paper transformations at best. Still ...
... additional clarification is needed before they can guide action. As just a start, several further questions loom large: access to what,19 efficiency of what,20 and independence from whom?21 As we will see, even those pursuing an ...
... addition of other elements (the rise in crime rates following the creation of more open political systems, the impact of economic globalization, and an increasing reliance on the judiciary to resolve political conflicts, once handled by ...
... additional impetus from foreign donors, especially the United States. The latter added an interest in prosecuting state agents who had perpetrated abuses.27 In the short run, this additional interest occupied another parallel track. The ...
... additional elements to turn legal theory into practice. These included training programs, the creation of new organizations (public defense and prosecution), restructuring and reorientation of existing ones (the courts, police, and ...
Other editions - View all
Envisioning Reform: Improving Judicial Performance in Latin America Linn Hammergren Limited preview - 2010 |
Envisioning Reform: Improving Judicial Performance in Latin America Linn A. Hammergren No preview available - 2007 |