Does staffing affect the time to dispose cases in Greek courts?

Mitsopoulos, Michael; Pelagidis, Theodore

doi:10.1016/j.irle.2007.06.001

Cited by 67 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…The available workforce has been mentioned as a positive factor to increase the judicial performance of courts (Chaparro & Jiménez, 1996;Gomes, Guimaraes, & Akutsu, 2016;Mitsopoulos & Pelagidis, 2007;Schneider, 2005). For instance, Chaparro and Jiménez (1996) found that a larger administrative workforce provides better working conditions for judges, while Mitsopoulos and Pelagidis (2007) found that good administrative support could help to speed the work of the courts.…”

Section: Hypothesismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For instance, Chaparro and Jiménez (1996) found that a larger administrative workforce provides better working conditions for judges, while Mitsopoulos and Pelagidis (2007) found that good administrative support could help to speed the work of the courts. In the Brazilian Judiciary, Gomes, Guimaraes, and Akutsu (2016) used longitudinal data (2003to 2012 for all state courts to investigate the impact of hiring new judges and administrative assistants on court performance.…”

Section: Hypothesismentioning

confidence: 99%

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Court Caseload Management: The Role of Judges and Administrative Assistants

2017

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ResumoA gestão do acervo de processos pendentes em tribunais é essencial para garantir que os processos serão julgados de maneira célere, e isso depende de como juízes e assistentes administrativos lidam com suas cargas de trabalho. Resultados de diversos estudos indicam que um aumento no acervo de tribunais tende a gerar um aumento na produção judicial dos juízes. Entretanto alguns autores apontam que essa relação é mais complexa do que aparenta. No intuito de desenvolver um entendimento mais aprofundado dessa relação, é testado, neste trabalho, um conjunto de hipóteses diretas e de moderação. Foram utilizados dados secundários referentes a 566 juízes que trabalham em varas de primeira instância da Justiça Estadual de São Paulo, Brasil. Os resultados indicam uma relação direta e positiva entre o acervo da vara e a produção dos juízes, mas a força dessa relação varia de acordo com a especialidade da vara. Os resultados também mostram que a quantidade de assistentes administrativos, a experiência e os locais em que o juiz atua moderam a relação entre acervo e produção judicial. Os resultados contribuem para o desenvolvimento de estratégias gerenciais a fim de enfrentar o congestionamento de tribunais brasileiros.Palavras-chave: judiciário; gestão de tribunais; juízes; produção; acervo. AbstractCourt caseload management is of key importance for guaranteeing the adjudication of cases and depends on how judges and administrative assistants deal with their workload. Results from several studies indicate that an increase in court caseload tends to generate an increase in the judge's production. However, some authors argue that this relationship is far more complex. To develop a fuller understanding of this relationship we tested an array of direct and moderating hypotheses. We used secondary data from 566 judges working in first trial courts in the State Justice System of Sao Paulo, Brazil. The results indicate a direct and positive relationship between court caseload and judge production, but the strength of this relationship depends on court specialty. The findings also indicate that the number of administrative assistants, judge experience and the number of places a judge works all moderate the caseload-production relationship. The results contribute to the development of strategies to address the delays and congestion of courts, two of the main Brazilian Judiciary problems.

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Section: Hypothesismentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Hypothesismentioning

confidence: 99%

Court Caseload Management: The Role of Judges and Administrative Assistants

2017

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“…Applied to our court-level data, the essence of our statistical test is to examine if court-year observations for 26 which the number of case dispositions is large relative to the regression-estimated benchmark differ systematically in terms of the number of appealed cases (see, e.g., Mitsopoulos andPelagidis 2007, 2010;Coviello et al 2014) from the court-year observations for which the number of case dispositions is small relative to the regression-estimated benchmark. The number of appealed cases proxies for the quality of judicial decision-making since lower court judges prefer to avoid reversals by appellate courts (see, e.g., Stephenson 2009); hence, they prefer to avoid having their decisions appealed.…”

Section: Empirical Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…First, we add to the growing empirical law and economics literature on the activity of courts. Within this literature, relatively few studies have been able to draw on original court-based data from judicial systems outside of the U.S. or the common law world (see, e.g., Beenstock and Haitovsky 2004, Mitsopoulos and Pelagidis 2007, Rosales-Lopez 2008, Schneider 2005Di Vita 2012aElbialy and GarciaRubio 2011, Finocchario Castro and Guccio 2014, Santos and Amado 2014, Falavigna et al 2015. Our analysis of Bulgarian courts contributes to the literature by shedding light on the functioning of the judicial system in the understudied post-socialist region.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Courts in a transition economy: Case disposition and the quantity–quality tradeoff in Bulgaria

et al. 2016

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. The lack of effective judiciary in post-socialist countries has been a pervasive concern and successful judicial reform an elusive goal. Yet to date, little empirical research exists on the functioning of courts in the post-socialist world. We draw on a new court-level panel dataset from Bulgaria to study the determinants of court case disposition and to evaluate whether judicial decision-making is subject to a quantity-quality tradeoff. Addressing endogeneity concerns, we find that case disposition in Bulgarian courts is largely driven by demand for court services. The number of serving judges, a key court resource, matters to a limited extent only in a subsample of courts, a result suggesting that judges adjust their productivity based on the number of judges serving at a court. We do not find evidence implying that increasing court productivity would decrease adjudicatory quality. We discuss the policy implications of our findings. Terms of use: Documents inJEL-Code: P370, K400, D020.

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“…For example Mitsopoulos and Pelagidis (2007) in their study of Greek courts' timeliness applied the 'number of total employees that work in any given year for the Ministry of Justice' instead of number of judges in their analysis (p. 224). Barrère et al (2001) estimated sophisticated stochastic frontier production functions 16 for civil and criminal cases in French first-instance courts.…”

Section: Model's Consistencymentioning

confidence: 99%

Is Sky the Limit? Revisiting ‘Exogenous Productivity of Judges’ Argument

Jonski¹,

Mańkowski

2014

IJCA

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Abstract:This paper revisits the 'exogenous productivity of judges' hypothesis, laid down in numerous law & economics studies based on the production-function approach. It states that judges, when confronted with growing caseload pressure, adjust their productivity upward, thereby increasing number of resolved cases. We attribute this result to assumptions regarding court productivity. In this paper, we present an alternative -the 'hockey-stick' production function model --taking into account the time constraints faced by judges. We seek to reconcile this 'production function' model with more traditional and popular approach among practitioners to court performance modelling -the use of weighted caseload methodology. We also propose extended methodology of model evaluation, taking into account its ability to reproduce empirical regularities observed in 'real world' court systems.Keywords: court efficiency, caseload management, judicial productivity, production function, weighted caseload JEL Code: H 11, H 50, K40,Remember that all models are wrong; the practical question is: how wrong do they have to be to not be useful?

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Does staffing affect the time to dispose cases in Greek courts?

Cited by 67 publications

References 11 publications

Court Caseload Management: The Role of Judges and Administrative Assistants

Court Caseload Management: The Role of Judges and Administrative Assistants

Courts in a transition economy: Case disposition and the quantity–quality tradeoff in Bulgaria

Is Sky the Limit? Revisiting ‘Exogenous Productivity of Judges’ Argument

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