JUDICIARY
OF THE FUTURE
INTERNATIONAL
CONFERENCE ON
COURT EXCELLENCE
GOOD GOVERNANCE & JUDICIAL ETHICS
Amit Mukherjee
Singapore: 29 January 2016
Presentation Structure
1. Good Governance
2. Judicial Ethics
3. Questions
4. Takeaways
1
1.Good Governance
2
The governance challenge
• Countries differ in:
• Initial endowments
• Institutional capacity
• Modernization trajectories
• Growing gap between:
• Expectations from and demands on states
• States’ capabilities to meet such demands
3
Governance – notable trends
•
Collapse of command-and-control economies
•
The welfare state’s fiscal crisis (industrialized countries)
•
The role of the state in ‘miracle economies’, primarily
China and East Asia
•
Collapse of states: refugee/IDP/ humanitarian emergencies
•
The uncertain intersection of religion & the temporal state
•
Capitalism’s coming crisis: social tensions from the growing
inequality of income and wealth
4
Turkmenistan
Uzbekistan
Tajikistan
Kyrgyz Rep.
Belarus
Russian Fed.
Azerbaijan
Ukraine
Kazakhstan
Albania
Kosovo
Armenia
Serbia
Moldova
Macedonia
Bosnia
Bulgaria
Georgia
Montenegro
Romania
Turkey
Croatia
Italy
Greece
Slovak Rep.
Hungary
Poland
Latvia
Lithuania
Israel
Korea, Rep.
Slovenia
Czech Rep.
Portugal
Spain
Cyprus
Estonia
Japan
Chile
Belgium
France
USA
Germany
Iceland
UK
Ireland
Australia
Canada
Luxembourg
Switzerland
Netherlands
Austria
Denmark
New Zealand
Sweden
Finland
Norway
Can ‘good governance’ be quantified?
Source: World Bank staff estimates
3.0
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
-0.5
-1.0
-1.5
-2.0
-2.5
Rule of Law
5
Control of Corruption
Government Effectiveness
Regulatory Quality
Ease of Doing Business
Mechanisms to raise state capability
6
The World Bank supports countries in improving governance
Property Rights & Rule-based Governance
Quality of Budgetary & Financial Management
3.4
4
3.8
3.6
3.4
3.2
3
2.8
2.6
3.2
3
2.8
2.6
2.4
2.2
2005
2006
EAP
2007
2008
2009
ECA
SSA
2010
2011
2012
MNA
SAS
2013
LAC
Global
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
EAP
ECA
MNA
SSA
SAS
Global
Efficiency of Revenue Mobilization
LAC
Transparency, Accountability &
Corruption
3.9
3.8
3.6
3.4
3.7
3.2
3.6
3
2.8
3.5
2.6
2.4
3.4
2.2
3.3
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
3.2
3.1
3
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
EAP
ECA
MNA
SSA
SAS
Global
Source: World Bank
2011
2012
LAC
2013
EAP
ECA
MNA
SSA
SAS
Global
LAC
Property rights & rule-based governance (2005-2013)
3.4
3.2
CPIA Score
3
2.8
2.6
2.4
2.2
2005
EAP
8
2006
2007
ECA
2008
MNA
2009
LAC
2010
SSA
2011
2012
SAS
2013
Global
How do judiciaries perform? Let’s look at Finland and Greece…
9
2. Judicial Ethics
10
The state and the judiciary…
• An effective state is indispensable for:
• Rule of law
• Economic and social development
• Protecting the vulnerable
• Well-functioning markets
11
Judicial ethics
Ethics:
• Moral principles that govern behavior/conduct
• Associated with:
• All civilizations!
• Right and wrong, good and evil, virtuous
and non-virtuous behavior, standards of
behavior, rules of conduct
Judicial ethics
• Primarily associated with judges
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Good governance & the judiciary
• In every country (barring some outliers) the
composition and performance of the judiciary
reflects the societal and operational environment
• ‘Trust deficit’ in many countries, due to:
• Opaque, complex and dilatory processes
• Insufficient access, especially for vulnerable
• Perceived corruption and lack of redress
• Unpredictability of decisions/outcomes
• Perceived vulnerability to undue influence
13
Have judicial ethics improved?
• The World Bank supports countries all over the
world to modernize their judiciaries
• Part of such support helps improve judicial
ethics and integrity
• Has it worked?
• Very difficult to say because:
• What constitutes evidence of change?
• Improvements tend to occur over time
• Gains are fragile and easy to reverse
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3. Questions
15
Some first-order questions…
• Why have some judiciaries been more successful than
others in building public trust?
• Can justice be effectively delivered if the state itself
is ineffective?
• If not, what interventions or support are appropriate
and how should they be sequenced?
• Where judicial capabilities have improved (in terms
of personnel, finance, technology, infrastructure),
have judicial ethics improved at the same pace?
Where is the evidence?
16
Second-order questions…
• Does the judiciary have the leadership it needs?
• How frequent is turnover in top positions?
• Is there a leadership pipeline?
• What is the ‘judicial culture’?
• How is it transmitted?
• Who are the ‘culture-carriers’?
• Does the judicial leadership have a vision?
• Can it rally the judiciary behind that vision? The
executive? The legislature? The public? The media?
• Is the judiciary’s composition appropriate?
• Gender balance? Minority representation?
17
Questions we ask ourselves…
• Why have judicial ethics improvement programs had
such a mixed track record?
• What are the good examples?
• What lessons have we learnt?
• What can be done to support a judiciary to improve
judicial ethics:
• By its own leadership?
• By international peers?
• By international professional bodies?
• By multilateral & bilateral development partners?
• By other stakeholders?
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4. Takeaways
19
1. The role of peers
• The most effective means to improve judicial
ethics appears to be through peer support and
pressure from other jurisdictions
• BUT peer pressure tends to be episodic and
fleeting…
• How can peer forums and groupings help in a
more systematic way?
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2. Ethics & the judiciary of the future…
• Judicial ethics is likely to make the difference
between success and failure – hence incredibly
important to get it right
• Well-performing judiciaries and partners such
as the World Bank can:
• Identify what has worked and why
• Improve how judicial ethics can be assessed
• Provide sustained peer-based support and
technical assistance to improve judicial ethics
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3. Stress and Under-performance
• Stress:
• Countries’ banks and financial systems are
now subjected to periodic stress tests
• But judiciaries confront stress tests daily:
• At the system level
• At the individual level
• Judiciaries need to do better at coping with
stress – and judicial ethics can play a key role
in making this happen
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4. The World Bank’s JUSTPAL Network..
• JUSTPAL = Justice Sector Peer-Assisted
Learning Network (www.justpal.org)
• Good practice examples, peer-to-peer
networking, five Communities of Practice
• Please partner with us to help judiciaries
strengthen judicial ethics and judicial
functioning!
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Thank you!
Questions? Comments?
Amit Mukherjee
Lead Public Sector Specialist
Governance Global Practice
The World Bank
e-mail: [email protected]
mobile: +1 202 247 8826
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