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Treatment courts are an alternative to incarceration that focus on the rehabilitation of defendants suffering from substance addiction by utilizing the concept of therapeutic jurisprudence. Treatment courts have been studied extensively and were found to reduce recidivism and produce net costsavings when compared to traditional incarceration. Iowa’s treatment court system has developed through the grassroots efforts of individual judges and their teams utilizing federal grant money. However, the state has failed to provide adequate funding to allow treatment courts to evolve and come into compliance with evidence-based best practice standards. This Note argues that Iowa must adopt treatment court legislation that encourages the proliferation of treatment courts, creates a judicial branch committee to ensure that treatment courts are compliant with best practice standards, and funds treatment courts directly through the Judicial Branch, rather than through each district’s department of corrections. Funding for such a bill could be sourced from the $174 million settlement that will be paid to the state by opioid producers and distributors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In examining the legal systems of Romania, the United Kingdom, and the United States, one is immediately struck by the divergent paths through which justice is administered and law is interpreted within these jurisdictions. This paper delves into the foundational differences in legal traditions and systems, specifically, the civil law system of Romania contrasted with the common law traditions of the UK and the US, exploring how these differences impact the interpretation of laws, the roles of judges, and the overall legal processes. For legal practitioners, scholars, and students, understanding these comparative dynamics is crucial for navigating the increasingly interconnected global legal landscape, offering insights into how different societies organize their judiciary to uphold the rule of law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we introduce an optimization model to quantify the trade-off between resource capacity utilization and disposition time for the caseload of courts of justice. The optimization model takes into account the impact of an increase in demand that may arise when disposition time is reduced. We employ the model to measure the impact of various policy reform scenarios on the length of trials, both at the court and system level. We do so by taking into account the potential reallocation of resources, using the population of Italian courts of justice over the 2005–2012 period. Our results show that if all policy scenarios we discuss were to be implemented, the average length of trials for civil cases would be more than halved, from the current 15.5 months to about 7 months. Implementing best practices, the single most effective policy would be equivalent to a 25% increase in the number of judges (which would otherwise cost around 100 million euros per year). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In intersystemic cases, a court applies the law of a foreign system. Scholars have argued that the court ought to use the interpretive methodology of the foreign system's courts. I argue against that intuitive position. First, interpretive methodology is not bound up with primary rights and duties such that it constitutes substantive law for conflict of laws purposes. Second, although interpretive methodology has epistemic value and may affect case outcomes, a given methodology might not have the same epistemic value or the same effect on outcomes for differently situated interpreters. Further, the approach that the foreign judges take to interpreting their own law is necessarily anchored to the foreign system's rule of recognition, which is not true of the approach of external judges. Descriptive facts might align such that external interpreters would have to use the internal methodology to identify the applicable law, but that's an empirical question the answer to which will vary from case to case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technologies that have emerged over the past five years are changing the way in which judges work. Some of the technologies can support judges and others have the potential to replace them. This article considers international developments in selected jurisdictions as well as barriers to the take-up of technology. From the use of supportive technologies including generative Al and videoconferencing, to the development of technologies that guide and monitor judges, there are differing ethical impacts as well as impacts on the role of judges as guardians of the court system and protectors of democratic arrangements. The impacts on the judiciary of these types of technologies are considered together with more future-focused options. For example, how might judges be "enhanced" in the future and what options could be available to enhance, rather than replace, judges with supportive technologies? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea of institutionalism Jigures prominently in today's debates about the role Of federal courts in American democracy. For example, Chief Justice Roberts is often described as an institutionalist who seeks to preserve the Supreme Court's power or reputation. 13ut what exactly is institutionalism, and should judges be institutionalists? Atthough institutionalism is invoked in public disputes over the future qf the>deratjudiciary, it is much less*equently theorized in depth. This Article ofters an extended analysis and defense qf judicial institutionalism. It conceptualizes institutionalism as an approach tojudging that meaningfully takes into account two interests of the judiciary: legitimacy-understood as pubtic cordidence in the courts-and the elficient administration of the court system. Institutionalism bolsters the enforceability of court decisions and helps to prevent a situation in which one side of salient cultural debates is a "permanent loser" in the judicial process. Institutionalist judges do not flout the law; instead, institutionalism properly shapes their view Of what the law requires. The Article ofters several practical options for implementing institutionalism in the real world. These options couer such areas as the certiorari process, equitable rernedies, unpublished opinions, justiciability, stare decisis, and the "merits" of a case. 'The Article also responds to several objections to institutionalism, such as the critique that the-federal courts ought to be disempowered and thatjudges are not competent to assess etlects on the institution. In particular; the Article addresses the concern that institutionalist judges improperly engage in deception about the basisjor their decisions. In response, the Article argues that complete transparency injudging is not required and may not even be expected by the public. In sum, the Article lays the conceptual groundwork for an institutionalist approach--at a time when the acceptance or rejection of institutionalism will have a major impact on many areas of law and the federal courts' trqjectory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scientific article examines the peculiarities of the organization and conduct of judicial control of the preliminary investigation in European countries. It was determined that judicial control in historical retrospect dates back to the Middle Ages, so it has a long practical experience of application. It has been established that in the national legal systems of European countries, judicial control is organized differently, therefore the scientific literature confirms the existence of two types of models of judicial control depending on the purpose of judicial control in a criminal process. The first type of models is characterized by the presence of investigative functions and powers in the field of investigative actions for the representatives of the judiciary, who are authorized to exercise judicial control over the pre-trial investigation. The second type of models of judicial control in European countries is organized in such a way that representatives of the judiciary in pre-trial investigation are empowered with powers that are limited to resolving issues related to monitoring the observance of the rights and freedoms of the participants in the pre-trial investigation, without decisive influence on the course of the pre-trial investigation. The peculiarities of the specialization of entities that perform the functions of judicial control were analyzed and it was determined that they are divided into judicial bodies that are not separated from general courts (they lack specialization); judicial bodies in which there are separate positions of investigative judges in general courts; specialized judicial bodies. The advantages and disadvantages of the models of the first and second type of organization of judicial control over pre-trial investigation in European countries are established. The advantages of the first-type models are the cost-effectiveness of the organization of judicial control, the secondtype models are characterized by a higher degree of quality protection of the rights and freedoms of a person in pre-trial investigation due to the exclusive specialization of representatives of the judiciary. It was determined that the peculiarities of legal regulation of judicial control over pre-trial investigation in Ukraine allow us to conclude that it belongs to the second type of models. Depending on the degree of specialization, the Ukrainian model of judicial control provides for the position of an investigative judge in the system of courts of general jurisdiction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Upholding the fundamental rights of families during child welfare court cases is critical to ensuring equal access to justice. This article review research related to the due process measures in the Judicial, Court, and Attorney Measures of Performance (JCAMP). Studies of due process practices early in the case to avoid unnecessary involvement of families are presented. These represent divergent opinions on the role of the judge and arguments for the early appointment of parent attorneys. Future research is critical to understand practices which promote fairness and address the over‐representation of families of color in the child welfare system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Executive Summary: This paper examines the staffing needs of the US Department of Justice's Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), as it seeks to eliminate an immigration court backlog, which approached 2.5 million pending cases at the end of fiscal year (FY) 2023. A previous study by the Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS) attributed the backlog to systemic, long-neglected problems in the broader US immigration system. This paper provides updated estimates of the number of immigration judges (IJs) and "judge teams" (IJ teams) needed to eliminate the backlog over ten and five years based on different case receipt and completion scenarios. It also introduces a data tool that will permit policymakers, administrators and researchers to make their own estimates of IJ team hiring needs based on changing case receipt and completion data. Finally, the paper outlines the pressing need for reform of the US immigration system, including a well-resourced, robust, and independent court system, particularly in light of record "encounters" of migrants at US borders in FY 2022 and 2023. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the State of the Judiciary speech delivered by the Supreme Court of Missouri Chief Justice Mary R. Russell at the Missouri General Assembly joint session in Jefferson City on February 7, 2024. Topics include her expression of gratitude to the members of the judiciary, the new judges of the court like Judge Ginger Gooch and updates in the expungement work by courts as mandated by law.

Judicial mediation has been used in Lithuania for more than fifteen years. During this period, the model of the application of this alternative dispute resolution method in Lithuania has experienced constant changes and faced various challenges, from the model of judges to the market model and back. Such transformation shows the fact that this institute is still developing. This article aims to assess the current situation of judicial mediation in Lithuania and, based on judges’ attitudes, to identify possible directions for improving the current model. In order to achieve this goal, the analysis of the legal structure of the judicial mediation model currently used in Lithuania was undertaken, and statistical data on the practice of applying this court-connected alternative dispute resolution method in courts were discerned. This was followed by a survey of judges and a focus group discussion, aiming to find out their attitudes towards the state of the art and further developments of this institute, as judges are the most frequent initiators of this process and the entities most often providing the services of mediation. The article succinctly presents the historical development of judicial mediation in Lithuania, defines the existing model of judicial mediation in civil proceedings and its features, presents the results of an empirical study of the attitudes of judges to judicial mediation, and provides generalizations. The empirical study was carried out by combining quantitative (a survey of judges and judge/mediators) and qualitative (discussions between groups of judges and judge/mediators) research methods. It should be noted that, from the point of view of judges, the institute of judicial mediation in Lithuania, in order to achieve its sustainability and the successful further practice of application, could be improved by paying greater attention to its further publicity, improving the working conditions of judicial court mediators and reviewing the motivational system of court mediator judges. The results of this study create the prerequisites for further research aimed at improving the legal regulation of judicial mediation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of AIN Journal is the property of Arab Institute of Navigation and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The COVID-19 pandemic forced courts across the country to close their doors to in-person proceedings. Courts had to quickly adopt remote technologies that they ignored for years to keep courts operational. As courts have re-opened, courts have maintained hybrid court processes recognizing the benefits that hybrid courts offer for judicial efficiency. However, due to the speed with which courts adopted new hybrid court models they were often developed haphazardly. As they continue to evolve, states have left significant discretion in the design to individual courts and often individual judges, creating inconsistencies in the process. Lawyers and judges have been able to quickly adopt their practices to utilize these new hybrid court systems. Yet, eighty to ninety percent of cases have at least one unrepresented party, often of low-income. Low-income unrepresented litigants make up the lion's share of individuals utilizing the civil legal system, and they seem to have been left out of the equation as the hybrid court models have been developed. Despite the fact that low-income litigants make up the majority of litigants in the civil justice system, the hybrid courts recently designed have made it more difficult for these unrepresented litigants to access the court system. Hybrid court models have been around since the early 1990s, and models developed just prior to the pandemic focused on increasing access to justice for low-income individuals. Courts need to take a step back and carefully consider how to evolve their hybrid court models using information gathered from the prepandemic models, the current models, and the benefits and difficulties that have been realized from these models. Hybrid court models that are consistent, with a well explained process, combined with an option to opt-out of the technological components when they create barriers, as well as accessible locations with the available technology and assistance necessary can assure that low-income litigants are not barred from the "new" courthouse doors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dramatic increases to the use of probation, particularly over the 1980–2010 period, have been identified across many Western nations. Yet Canada has experienced a very different trajectory. The volume of probation sentences imposed in Canada has declined substantially over the past 30 years. This article employs national data from the Uniform Crime Reporting Survey and Integrated Criminal Court Survey to identify factors that have contributed to this unique trend. Unlike other nations, Canada has not introduced a series of new community-based sanctions, nor has it widely embraced tough-on-crime policies. Results of the analyses in this study show that the decline in probation has come about during a period where there have been decreases in the crime rate, the volume of cases entering the court system, and the proportion of cases resulting in a guilty finding. Conversely, there has been a greater tendency for judges to include probation as part of sentencing dispositions, yet the volume of probation sentences has nevertheless declined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article argues that executive control over immigration adjudication subjects Immigration Judges (IJs) to a variety of conditions that bias the entire adjudicatory system in favor of removal. It mentions role IJs play within the current immigration court system and explains how this structure has opened the door for executive control and influence over IJs. It also mentions place in the existing statutory and administrative framework.

In order to prevent judicial bias and increase transparency within the court system, case distribution among judges is often subjected to specific rules. The question which arises, however, is whether these rules are obeyed in practice. In this paper, looking at the example from the Constitutional Tribunal of the Republic of Poland in the period 2011–2014, we check whether assigning judges to panels is consistent with the alphabetical rule that should govern the appointment of judges to cases. Our results show that the rule was fully obeyed only rarely and in fact, in most cases, it was notably disrupted. We test several potential explanations that may account for this issue. We find that the most obvious explanations such as formal preclusions, random events or other duties at the Tribunal can account for a minor share of the violations at best. Among the factors that we considered, a strategic composition of adjudication panels appears to have the highest explanatory potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the challenges faced and practices developed by Taiwanese judges in cases involving Indigenous laws and lands to fulfil the objectives of Taiwan's Indigenous court units. Despite the official establishment of these units, local actors debated their real presences within Taiwan courts. Non-Indigenous actors administered proceedings, state laws and justice practices applied, the language of Han mainstream society dominated legal discourse, training for judges and prosecutors was minimal, and court unit proceedings generally replicated ordinary court procedures, rendering the units ambiguous as distinct institutions. While some judges ignored these ambiguities, other judges endeavoured to integrate Indigenous world views, ontologies and meanings into applications of new laws and procedures through varied strategies. In practice, these exploratory approaches constituted the Indigenous court units in Taiwan courts. While these strategies may, in certain circumstances, create possibilities for improving Indigenous recognition within the national court system, they could also work against Indigenous people in their bids for justice through the courts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article concentrates on backsliding of the rule-of-law in Poland which is being observed already since 2015. This is a process which is neither a sudden nor a recent development and has been confirmed also by a series of judgements issued by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) which address the question of judicial independence in Poland. The protective roles of other key justice system institutions, such as the Constitutional Court and the prosecutorial system, have been seriously compromised over time by the infiltration of government zealots promoting executive usurpation of justice system authority. The key elements of this process are presented to show the mechanism that has been used to dismantle the fundaments of the democratic rule-of-law state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article advocates for the judicial independence of immigration courts and immigration courts from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). Topics discussed are basic structure of the existing U.S. immigration court system, inequities resulting from a nonindependent court including politicized hiring and insufficient training and professional development opportunities, and recommendations to create an independent executive branch agency and to convert appellate entity into a federal court.

This article focuses the emergence of and need for alternative governmentality and Kurdish non-state justice under a conflicted and authoritarian state. It analyses how and why Kurdish de facto judges operate and negotiate prevailing power relations, illustrating the practice of the Kurdish alternative court system before 2000, and the development of local justice in Kurdish towns and cities after 2000. The article maps out the diverse and varied scene of Kurdish parallel justice procedures and mechanisms. The gendered demands and activities of key actors and beneficiaries are analysed, and relations, tensions and political rifts beyond the actual court procedures explored. The article sheds light on the different obstacles and challenges facing women and men under local justice, while also paying attention to ethnic and religious diversities. In this article, the examination of the state and understanding the everyday life of regular people are mainly based on direct ethnographical accounts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1952, Congress established a new federal position to be filled by "special inquiry officers" charged with overseeing deportation cases. These immigration judges--as they eventually came to be called--were assigned to work within the executive branch, namely, the Department of Justice, and they were to be answerable ultimately to a political appointee, the attorney general. Importantly, they received specific statutory authority allowing them to "develop the record" during an immigration case. This power enabled immigration judges to assemble evidence and call, "interrogate, examine, and cross-examine . . . any witnesses.". Given that many immigrants who appear in immigration court do so pro se, it is certainly understandable why Congress believed arming the judge with this power would be beneficial. After all, in the absence of counsel, who else might safeguard these immigrants' interests? Moreover, the federal courts have uniformly found this statute to be legally valid and normatively valuable as well. But assume that the immigrant has a lawyer. Should the immigration judge still be able to develop the record in the same way? On this question, the federal courts have not reached a consensus. This Article argues that the answer should be no and proposes an approach to address this situation--one that allows the lawyer and immigrant-client to opt out of having the immigration judge intervene. The analytical model offered here is especially necessary at this moment because, given the intense political pressure on immigration judges, they frequently overstep and encroach upon the lawyerclient relationship, often adversely affecting the immigrant's legal representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Secuencia: Revista de Historia y Ciencias Sociales is the property of Instituto de Investigaciones - Dr. Jose M. Luis Mora and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Richard Susskind's most recent book sets forth a vision for the future role of online courts in resolving civil disputes and why they will have a profound effect on the manner in which processing of disagreements and claims under law is likely to occur. The benefits will compound as the traditional processes that comprise the oftentimes cumbersome, time-intensive and costly framework of conventional courts give way to more efficient, direct, convenient, and affordable online solutions. Susskind's years of advocacy for automated solutions in court system operations and functions are manifest in how he judiciously analyzes and responds to the myriad objections to his vision. He alerts his readers to the perils of overlooking the human elements of dispute resolution, highlighting the challenges to online developers and the risks they pose for the dispute resolution field. He argues persuasively that because more than half of the world's population lacks meaningful access to the rule of law and administration of justice, our challenge is to leverage the potential of technology and the Internet to broaden that access by creating and deploying functional online courts worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Virginia's two-tier trial court system, a losing defendant may appeal to the Circuit Court for a trial de novo to be heard by a judge or jury simply by paying the fees, costs, and an appeal bond usually equal to the judgment amount. However, an indigent defendant is only required to pay the appeal bond in very limited circumstances. Unfortunately for the indigent defendant, there is no clear way for the defendant to have the court make the necessary indigency determination, which undermines the entire purpose of the exemption for the indigent defendant. There are two possible solutions: either the courts should start applying a more flexible standard for when a motion to determine indigency should be heard as the General Assembly intended, or the General Assembly should amend Section 16.1-107 to clearly give the indigent defendant authority to bring such a motion in Circuit Court. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Juvenile justice is a matter of welfare and punishment between line departments in Pakistan. The juvenile courts operate under the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance, 2000. This paper discusses the issues in the juvenile justice system as perceived by judges in Pakistan. The paper is based on qualitative methodology whereby in-depth interviews were conducted with judges of the session courts and lower courts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. Further, document analysis was also conducted to draw inferences from certain cases summaries. The major issues are suppression of facts by the police, age determination, prosecution's poor scrutiny of the facts, and a few others. The central theme is that there is no difference between a juvenile and adult with respect to courts? system and structure in Pakistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the text of a speech by Missouri Chief Justice Paul C. Wilson, delivered at the 2021 hybrid Annual Meeting of The Missouri Bar and in person at the Judicial Conference of Missouri on September 23, 2021. Topics discussed include impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the profession, his view on the role of lawyers in the country's justice system, and problem with the lack of access to adequate legal representation.

Supporting Self-Represented Litigants and Access to Justice: How Does ODR Fit In? In 2015 the Conference of Chief Justices and the Conference of State Court Administrators (CCJ/COSCA), representing the leadership of the state court systems of the United States, adopted the following goal for access to justice for civil legal issues. [...] the Conference of Chief Justices and the Conference of State Court Administrators support the aspirational goal of 100 percent access to effective assistance for essential civil legal needs. How far are we from attaining that goal today? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the US, courts widely perceive that judicial scarcity is a common problem threatening the fair and timely resolution of disputes. Courts cite the attendant interest in judicial economy to justify interpreting the procedural and substantive law to reduce the judicial workload or accelerate the resolution of cases. But courts' assumption that there are too few judges to handle the current caseload is hard to substantiate. First, it may not be possible to infer from excessive judicial backlogs or other perceived judicial deficiencies that a shortfall of judges is to blame. Second, even when one confidently perceives that a judicial backlog or other deficiency in a particular US court is attributable to a dearth of judges, one cannot fairly generalize from that example to other US courts and jurisdictions. And third, judgments about judicial deficiencies popularly attributed to the inadequacy of judicial resources may turn on contestable assumptions about judges and adjudication. Given these challenges to measuring the adequacy of judicial resources, one might be skeptical whether judicial economies are worth the costs they impose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While many judicial systems in the Western World are coping with a shortage of judges, the public is not always aware of the overload and its reasons. Our claim is that the reason for this is the fact that the judicial system preferred to preserve an ideal image of the judiciary and control all information about it, rather than to publicize the judicial overload problem. In this paper, we aim to show that, until recently, the issue of judicial overload was hidden from the public eye. We deal with the importance and advantages of presenting the relevant facts to the public. We shall empirically show that the judicial system has begun to legitimize the exposure of judicial overload to the public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, court systems in the US and abroad have begun to adopt objective, empirically based methods for determining the need for judges. This methodology, called workload assessment or weighted caseload, provides an empirical basis to measure judicial work and assess how many judges are needed to handle the work in a particular jurisdiction, how judicial resources can be equitably allocated, and how much work any particular judge should handle. This article provides a general introduction to the basic elements and applications of the weighted caseload model in both nascent and transitional democracies, outlines the advantages and disadvantages of two alternative methods (Delphi v. time study) for developing case-weighting systems, and summarizes real-world applications in the US and other nations. The article concludes with a set of practical findings regarding the development and implementation of a case-weighting system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Israel the shortage of judges that has worsened over the years has led to a serious deterioration in the operation of Israel's judicial system. The article is ascertaining the intensity of the shortage by using international comparisons and comparing the rate of growth in the number of judges with the rate of growth of the general population. The article further describes the three main areas affected by the shortage. The first area is the judicial system itself where the shortage is the primary determinant of the delay and what the public often perceives as procrastination plaguing Israeli courts. Second area affected is due process-the shortage has led, in tandem with other factors, to inefficiency in the judicial system, compelling it, most prominently in the last decade or so, to be "innovative", that is, introduce procedures devoid of any legal footing. Third area affected are judges themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]