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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... sector institutions to make them more efficient, effective, and accessible while enhancing their role in checking illegal actions by governmental and private actors.6 “Strengthening,” a favorite word of reformers, meant increasing ...
... sector's resources, composition, and activities. The appearance of Latin American judiciaries and other sector organizations has changed a great deal in twenty years, and they operate differently as well. Many of the partial goals have ...
... sector operations. Sector is itself a vague term, but it is usually taken to encompass those institutions most closely related to the courts—police, prosecution, public defense, and the private bar. How reformers define improvement ...
... sector's weaknesses in general and as they affected the transition to the new systems eventually turned attention to some other elements: measures to strengthen judicial independence, reduce politicization of the appointment process ...
... sector. 38. See Kaufmann et al. (1999, 2002), LaPorta and López-de-Silanes (1998), World Bank Institute (1997, 2002), and Djankov et al. (2002). 39. Even the best-known researchers in this area are beginning twenty years of reforms 13.
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 |