Pressure on Judges: How the Budgeting System Can Impact on Judge’s Autonomy

Federica Viapiana
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Federica Viapiana: Italian Research Institute on Judicial Systems-National Research Council of Italy (IRSIG-CNR), 40126 Bologna, Italy

Laws, 2018, vol. 7, issue 4, 1-17

Abstract: Performance-based budgeting is a label that groups different budgeting models, developed in the New Public Management era, that link the funding to the performance of agencies. If European justice systems have been unresponsive to apply managerial techniques to courts, this is particularly true for modern budgeting techniques. Courts’ budgets have been, and still are in many cases, drafted only on historical costs, and, although important for the court functioning, it has been one of the most neglected subjects in court administration studies. In recent years, some countries have been developing new approaches to justice systems and court budgeting, using a “performance-based” budget perspective, which relates the courts’ budget to the efficiency results, setting specific performance targets. Although fundamental to ensure transparency, accountability, and proper resource allocation among courts, these approaches have an impact on judicial independence and autonomy, because they may put pressure on judges’ productivity and efficiency, to the detriment of quality. Building on two case studies, Finland and The Netherlands, this paper aims to analyze how, and to what extent, the “performance-based” budgeting system is influencing the functioning of courts and the autonomy of judges.

Keywords: court administration; judicial independence and accountability; judges’ behavior; efficiency; performance-based budget (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D78 E61 E62 F13 F42 F68 K0 K1 K2 K3 K4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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