JUDICIAL REFORM IN THE AMERICAS:
STRATEGIES AND RESULTS OF
JSCA’S WORK
JUSTICE IN THE REGION
• Overall, justice systems have been strengthened over
the past few decades:
– Increased jurisdictions (important: constitutional jurisdiction)
– Weakness of policy and other agencies, they reinforce their
role
– Significant increase in use of the system and the systems’
response capacity
– Growth in resources (budgets tripled), investment (multilateral
bank projects), personnel (average number of judges per
capita is almost equal to that of Europe and the number of
prosecutors is greater), salaries
– Improved selection systems (transparency and competition)
– Fewer intense interventions and more costs related to them
– Improvements in education and training (judicial academies)
– Strong JUDICIAL REFORM process, mainly in the area of
criminal justice
JUSTICE IN THE REGION
• But improvements not perceived by the general
population
• Confidence in judges is low (30% according to
Latinobarómetro 2007, down from 36% in 2006).
• Serious problems continue with:
-Efficiency and effectiveness
– Congestion and delay
– Corruption
– Discrimination against vulnerable groups
– Quality and lack of case law
– Scant information
• Need to monitor reforms: strong initial support drops
off at the most critical point in the implementation
process
• Need to know more about what works and what
doesn’t and why
JSCA’S PERSPECTIVE
• JSCA was created when this process was already
ongoing and had involved many actors at the national
and international levels.
• JSCA does not want to displace them or limit their
leadership. The Center’s goal is instead to cover gaps
related to:
– Possible synergies in regional work and through
networks
– The incorporation of a real public policy perspective
• JSCA looks to give new impetus to a reform process
that was losing its initial impulse.
JSCA’S STRATEGY
AREAS OF ACTION
STEP 1:
Knowledge
2000
2001
2005
STEP 2:
Generating
Discussion
2003
2007
2004
2004
STEP 3: Developing
Instruments
2002
CRIMINAL
JUSTICE
2005
MANAGEMENT
AND INFORMATION
2008
2005
CIVIL JUSTICE
STEP 4: Intervention
Projects
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
• Follow-up Studies on Criminal Procedure
Reform:
– 16 country reports that cover Latin American nations
– 3 comparative reports on Latin American countries
– 3 reports on countries in the English speaking
Caribbean
– 19 local validation seminars
– 4 inter-American seminars
– 4 specialized publications
MAIN FINDINGS
• Excess of confidence in the law as an agent of
change
• Limited understanding of oral procedures
• Little
attention
to
implementing
new
procedures:
– Failure to adjust organizations, positions,
processes
– Weak coordination
– Weak political support
– Formal training
83
35 43
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% Trials Held
Percentage of Scheduled
Trials That Were Held
98
76
30
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Location
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76
49
17
Training As An Instrument
of Change
• Training for reform must include a sense of play
-Traditional training tries to educate through normative
knowledge of the rules
• Training must provide the skills needed to fulfill new
roles (the problem of friends of the reform)
• New training breaks with traditional paradigms:
– Knowledge vs. Skills
– Skills for my job only
– Institutional autism vs. Inter-institutionality
– From problems to solutions
Training Activities Held
• Inter-American Program for Training Trainers for
Criminal Procedure Reform:
– The program has been implemented 5 times since
2004 (including this year).
– It has graduated 248 students from 18 countries.
– We received 974 applications for the 5 programs.
– Average grade on the final paper was 81% in
2007.
– 94 local replicas held and attended by over 6,964
beneficiaries.
CEJACAMPUS
• The Virtual Campus is our space for developing elearning courses.
• Its operation is vital to the Inter-American Program.
The e-learning session is the longest stage of the
course, lasting approximately 6 months.
• It has been used for other training programs including:
– Virtual Course for Latin American Prosecutors (two versions):
227 students
– Virtual Course for Guatemalan Judges,
Prosecutors and Public Defenders:
231 students
CIDA Evaluation (2006)
• The ISCJR project is consistent with a key development
priority for Latin American nations. JSCA’s research and
training programs are appreciated throughout the region.
The training methodology employed is effective and
benefits from an ongoing evaluation and review process.
The projects that have been replicated significantly
increase the impact of JSCA training programs.
• The objectives of the ISCJR project are practical, relevant
and important for the success of justice reform programs.
• The ISCJR project administration shows high levels of
efficiency, effectiveness and economy.
• The ISCJR is an outstanding example of success in SouthSouth cooperation that utilizes Chilean and Argentine
judicial reform experiences as models in the design of new
approaches to reforms in other Latin American countries.
Main Intervention Projects
•Ecuador: Cuenca and Quito
–Follow-up Project on Criminal Procedure Reform since 2002
Local Counterpart: Fundación Esquel
•Costa Rica:
– Follow-up Project on Criminal Procedure Reform since 2001
Institutional Support: Supreme Court of Costa Rica
•Guatemala: Quetzaltenango
– Follow-up Project on Criminal Procedure Reform since 2002
–Judicial Statistics Projects since 2005
Local Counterpart: Instituto Comparados en Ciencias Penales de Guatemala
(ICCPG)
•Argentina: Province of Buenos Aires
–Follow-up Project on Criminal Procedure Reform since 2001
Local counterparts: INECIP, CELS
–“Agreement for the Reform of the Adversarial System in the Province
of Buenos Aires, Argentina” (2 December 2004)
–“Agreement to Extend the Program to Strengthen Criminal Justice to
the Entire Province of Buenos Aires" (28 June 2006)
Local counterparts: Supreme Court, Attorney General’s Office, Ministry
of Justice of the Province of Buenos Aires
In each of these cases we began by taking a baseline and then
proceeded to periodically evaluate the results.
Mar del Plata, Argentina
Project
Abbreviated Trials
Conditional Trial Suspensions
397.27
546.08
600
400
327.25
240.73
350
500
300
Days
400
250
300
Days 200
18.74
150
200
21.57
100
100
0
50
Pilot Plan
Baseline - Baseline Oral Trial Court
Criminal Courts
0
Pilot Plan
Baseline
Baseline- Oral Trial Court
Criminal Courts
Other Key JSCA Projects
• Report on Judicial Systems in the Americas
(Third Edition – CIDA)
• Judicial Information System and Indicators for
Ibero-America
(Ibero-American
Judicial
Summit- IDB)
• Use of Technology in Justice Administration in
Latin America (Microsoft)
• Agenda for Civil Justice Reform
• Virtual Course on Gender and
Justice
Virtual Information Center
• JSCA Virtual Community and RED-EX
- 95,000 hits on www.cejamericas.org in 2007
- 204 active members of training program graduates’ network
(Red-EX)
• Virtual Library
- 6,057 online documents (4,361 in Spanish and 1,696 in
English)
- Online collaboration system for uploading
- documents
• Nexus Newsletter
- 84 bilingual monthly bulletins published
- 9,030 subscribers (6,746 read it in Spanish and 2,284 in
English)
• Judicial Systems Journal
- 13 biannual print issues
- New virtual format will be launched in 2008
Institutions Associated with
JSCA’s Work
Organization of American
States (OAS)
Ibero-American
Network of Judicial
Academies
Ibero-American Association
of Prosecutor’s Offices
Ibero-American
Judicial Summit
Inter-American Association of
Public Defender’s Offices
Judicial Educators’
Network – JEDNET
JSCA’s Financial
Sustainability
From its inception, JSCA’s Statutes considered the provision of voluntary
contributions by Member states.
“The Center and its activities shall be financed by voluntary contributions
provided by the OAS member states and by funds from other public and
private sources.
To that end, the Board of Directors shall authorize the establishment of
specific and fiduciary funds that may be required, such as those provided for
in Articles 68 and 69 of the General Standards to Govern the Operations of
the General Secretariat of the Organizations of American States.”
(Article 17 of the JSCA Statutes)
JSCA’s Strategic Plan for Financial Sustainability
-Approved by IV and V REMJA
-Approved at the XXXVI OAS General Assembly
-Mentioned by the XXXVII Assembly, which ordered the Permanent Council to monitor this
matter.
The approved Plan focused on the need to obtain direct contributions from Member States
that allow the Center to at least cover its basic operating costs and the generation of
regional public goods.
Multilateral Efforts
JSCA has contacted Ministries of Justice, Attorney General’s Offices, Prosecution Services and
Ministries of Foreign Affairs, informing the appropriate OAS agencies and Permanent Missions
of this effort.
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