Responsible court in the global world – Managerism or managerialism

Abstract

One can look at the improvement of the effectiveness and efficiency of the justice system from three perspectives: macro, mezo, and micro. After all, the general goal is to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of the justice system as a whole (the macro perspective), the courts (the mezo scale), and court proceedings (the micro scale). The need to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the justice system was noticed in the Strategy of modernization of justice in Poland in the years 2014–20201 prepared by the Ministry of Justice incorporates the three abovementioned perspectives. From the perspective of this paper, emphasis has been placed on courts. The Strategy, as a matter of fact, assumes that the improvement of the effectiveness and efficiency of courts may occur by introducing a model of management2 based on the idea of “managerialism” to run them.3 Effective and efficient courts, just like the proceedings they operate, are particularly important in the face of globalization, regulatory arbitration, as well as forum shopping. Based on a case study, this paper outlines the results of an innovative pilot project of implementing management methods of running common courts4, and sets out to answer the question of the extent to which the state of institutional development of courts allows one to employ good practices in courts already successful in the world of business. During the pilot study, in 60 selected regional, district, and appellate courts, with the support of external experts, „good practices” were implemented to serve as management enhancements (Final report…, 2014.. The results of the pilot study prove that the level of institutional development of courts determines the possibility of introducing good management practices that have already been approved in the world of business. This situation is further complicated by the diverse level of institutional development among courts. The type of a given court (its size, regional, district, appellate) may impact the possible upgrade of the maturity of the way a given practice functions. Also, not all business practices are eligible for implementation, given the different level of managers’ competence, as well as the frequently clear process of taking on the management staff.