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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... goals. I say “presumed” because aside from the uncomfortable juxtaposition of the two principal objectives (reducing human rights abuses and enhancing crime control), the reforms. 1. See Llobet (1993), Maier et al. (1993), Baytelman ...
... goals and design Reform is often a reactive undertaking. Its proponents are attempting to eliminate weaknesses in existing practices, often with far less clarity as to what they will substitute. Much of the Latin American judicial ...
... goals, however, has remained the same—the introduction of an accusatory, oral criminal justice proceeding in which the judge no longer conducts the investigation but instead oversees and adjudicates the conflicting arguments put forth ...
... goal, claiming that the accusatory system is also more effective in investigating crimes and bringing the guilty to justice. As will be argued below, this strategic sleight of hand has created some serious problems. Codes written from a ...
... goal only for the reformers. The expectations of the rest of the population, and the larger objective, were an improvement in the overall handling of criminal cases. A reduction in the frequency of traditional abuses (excessive use of ...
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 |