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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... successful anywhere in just getting the various actors to carry out their functions according to the new legal mandate. The inquisitorial habits, along with numerous traditional vices, were difficult to eliminate. Observers note that ...
... success of the reform in terms of its efficacy in processing cases, identifying the guilty, and bringing them to justice. Until recently, any effort to evaluate those areas depended only on anecdotal evidence. Recently the Latin ...
... successes, and admitting and discussing problems may be useful. Creating organizational working groups and inviting citizen participation might also help. We have no clear lessons on the ways to maintain and broaden support over the ...
... success of the borrowed mechanisms in its country of origin is often overstated. Judicial councils had already ... successful because practices are imbedded in a larger procedural whole. The French notion of the “criminal chain” (la ...
... success is frequently defined in terms of backlog and delay reduction or increases in the number of cases resolved. It is not only the donors who do this. Peru's very controversial executive-led judicial reform of the 1990s had “zero ...
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 |