The community involvement of courts: an action research study in the context of the Polish justice system

Przemysław Banasik, Sylwia Morawska and Agata Austen

Social Responsibility Journal, 2021, vol. 18, issue 6, 1209-1225

Abstract: Purpose - As a rule, common courts are hermetic organizations, separated from their stakeholders by procedures based on legal provisions. For these reasons, they are often perceived as unreliable and non-transparent, and as such, they do not inspire trust among stakeholders. The authors posit that the court’s community involvement may lead to the increased accountability and legitimacy of courts, which should in turn result in jurisprudence benefits. This paper discusses the concept of community involvement of courts, demonstrates how this idea may be implemented and explains its benefits for courts. Design/methodology/approach - The results of an action research study undertaken between June 2013 and March 2018 at the Regional Court in Gdansk (Poland) are discussed. Findings - The results highlight factors underlying the implementation of the idea of community involvement, as well as the areas in which courts take these actions, and explain how it influences their accountability and legitimacy. This research describes the interests of different stakeholders and proposes a range of actions that may be taken by courts while cooperating with stakeholders to achieve the aims of community involvement. It also proposes a set of steps that enable courts to implement the idea of community involvement. Originality/value - This paper develops the idea of the community involvement of courts, which may be used as an operating rule for public institutions to increase their legitimacy and accountability and explain its introduction in the context of courts. It offers a universal framework for the community involvement of courts that can be used in the context of any court in both the continental and Anglo-Saxon systems.

Keywords: Stakeholders; Action research; Community involvement; Courts; Justice system; Social responsibility of public organizations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:srjpps:srj-09-2020-0367

DOI: 10.1108/SRJ-09-2020-0367

Access Statistics for this article

Social Responsibility Journal is currently edited by Prof David Crowther

More articles in Social Responsibility Journal from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().