Conference

EGPA studygroup On Justice and Court Administration

Call for papers − EGPA Annual Conference 2017:
Permanent Study Group XVIII on Justice and Court Administration

1.      Aim of the Permanent Study Group XVIII on Justice and Court Administration

The study group offers an international and multidisciplinary platform to discuss justice administration policies, projects, and studies related to the functioning of courts, public prosecution agencies, and other organizations in the justice field.

The study group wants to function as a platform, where experiences and practices of organization development, policy development, policy implementation, and research in the justice field can be exchanged and discussed. For researchers it should help them to develop research projects and for persons working in the justice field the study group is an opportunity to be informed on the latest developments in their field and to influence the development of research. The scope of all this is to build bridges between national perspectives and to build a transnational professional community in the EU and beyond, involving both academics and practitioners (judges, prosecutors, court managers). The ultimate aim is to explore common ground for cooperation and exchange in Europe in the justice field amongst policymakers, managers and academics.

Whilst we keep an interest in the institutional developments within court and justice administration, both in national, European and international perspectives, in the future we also want to focus on projects concerning the service provision by justice organizations:

• Access to justice (in relation to ICT and the need for legal aid and legal representation). 
• Operations management in and between justice organizations (logistics and organization development in relation to speed of proceedings and reliability of data exchange).
• Consistency of judging (also in relation to knowledge management).
• Transnational Justice Cooperation (in Europe).
• Responsive justice (problem solving justice – subthemes are e.g. victims of crime, court related mediation, neighborhood justice, family issues. etc).
• Procedural Justice and outcome justice.
• Performance measurement and management in courts and  in the judiciary.
• Development of professional standards within the legal professions.
• eJustice, eProcess

More information about the Permanent Study Group XVIII on Justice and Court Administration can be found on the Website of EGPA:

http://www.iias-iisa.org/egpa/groups/permanent-study-groups/psg-xviii-justice-and-court-administration/

Some of the results of the activities of the Permanent Study Group XVIII on Justice and Court Administration at the EGPA Annual Conference are published in the International Journal for Court Administration www.iacajournal.org; the publications of the Swiss project on Justice Management are listed at: www.justizforschung.ch

The study group is co-chaired by:

• Prof. dr Philip Langbroek, University of Utrecht (the Netherlands)
• Prof. Dr. Andreas Lienhard, University of Bern (Switzerland)
• Mag. Daniel Kettiger, University of Bern (Switzerland)
• Dr. Marco Fabri, Research Institute on Judicial Systems, National Research Council (Italy)

For more information you can reach the Permanent Study Group XVIII on Justice and Court Administration by e-mail: egpa@kpm.unibe.ch.

2.      The EGPA Annual Conference 2017

The EGPA Annual Conference 2017 takes place from 30 August – 1 September in Milan, Italy. The Permanent Study Group XVIII on Justice and Court Administration plans 6 sessions of about 90 minutes.

More Information on the EGPA Annual Conference 2015 you can get here: http://egpa-conference2017.org

3.      Subjects for papers (scope)

3.1        Open call for all topics of justice and court management

This year ─ as in 2016 ─ the call for papers is for an open panel. So you may submit papers on all subjects concerning the administration or the management of justice with a broad perspective, also dealing with methodological issues in justice research and studies:

• Justice administration and politics (e.g. supervision and inspection in justice administration; independence, autonomy and accountability; justice systems as a policy domain; economic approaches to court administration; financial relations in justice administration; appointments and dismissal of judges and prosecutors; the relation between courts and politics).
• Justice administration and society (e.g. social problem solving; access to justice; positioning courts in society; pre-trial proceedings and mediation; lay judges and public trust; the involvement of juries in judicial administration; internationalization of law and society and the organization of transnational judicial cooperation between national justice systems; ethics in justice administration; the role of courts in macro-economics).
• Justice chains (e.g. relation between partners in the justice chains: courts and the prosecutions office, youth protection agencies, prisons, advocates, bailiffs, probation agencies, businesses, law schools; managing expert witnesses; leadership and coordination in chains with independent professionals; comparisons between courts and other professional organizations).
• Management of courts and prosecutor’s offices(organization development in courts; organization aims and targets in courts; appointment and career of judicial personnel, case-flow management; societal interactions and human resources management; required judicial skills as a function of juridical and societal needs; judicial specialization; cooperation between judges, public prosecutors and court staff, delay reduction programs, timeframes, case assignment, alternative dispute resolutions, judicial budget and allocation of resources, education and training; performance management, evaluation methods, e-justice, quality management, satisfaction surveys).

Not included are monodisciplinary papers on law matters, e.g. on the independence of judges or courts or on other subject in the fields of constitutional law. The papers shall have a multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary approach to the subject dealt with. Papers may as well contain new theories or hypotheses resulting from projects, studies or surveys.

If you are not sure if your idea for a paper fits to the scope of the Permanent Study Group XVIII, do not hesitate to get in contact with the study group: egpa@kpm.unibe.ch.

Posted on 30 Jan 2017