Envisioning reform : improving judicial performance in Latin America / Linn Hammergren.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hammergren, Linn A., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Justice, Administration of--Latin America.

Justice, Administration of.

Law reform--Latin America.

Law reform.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (362 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

University Park, Pennsylvania : The Pennsylvania State University Press, [2007]

Summary:

Judicial 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.

Contents:

Criminal justice reform : human rights, crime control, and other unlikely bedfellows

Judicial modernization : increasing the efficiency and efficacy of court actions

Developing a professional, institutionally independent judiciary

Access to justice : legal assistance, special courts, alternative dispute resolution and beyond

Strengthening the judiciary's role as a check on other branches of government

Judicial reform as a problem of focus : why the parts don't add up to a coherent whole

Improving the knowledge base for judicial reform programs

Toward a new strategic model

A political agenda for reforming the reforms.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [321]-339) and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780271053035

0271053038

9780271054681

0271054689

9780271049281

0271049286

9780271033150

0271033150

OCLC:

141185424