Innovate – Don’t Imitate! -ENCJ Research Should Focus on Research Gaps

• Published in: International journal for court administration Vol. 9; no. 3; pp. 47 - 53
• Main Author: Voigt, Stefan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: International Association for Court Administration 19.12.2018
• Subjects: judicial independence, judicial accountability, prosecutorial independence, prosecutorial accountability, judicial councils, indicator construction
• ISSN: 2156-7964; 2156-7964
• DOI: 10.18352/ijca.279

After a critical evaluation of the proposal by van Dijk and Vos to make judicial independence and accountability measurable, this paper discusses a number of basic methodological decisions that need to be made before meaningful indicators can be constructed. The paper then moves on to deplore the lack of knowledge regarding the effects of judicial councils and proposes that more research be carried out to reduce our knowledge deficit. It further describes the rising importance of prosecutors and the complete lack of indicators regarding prosecutorial accountability. It argues that producing indicators with regard to prosecutors could add a lot more value than yet another indicator on judicial independence.