Court Backlogs: Balancing Efficiency and Justice in Singapore

• Main Author: Helena Whalen-Bridge
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oñati International Institute for the Sociology of Law 2017-12-01
• Series: Oñati Socio-Legal Series
• Online Access: http://opo.iisj.net/index.php/osls/article/view/861

<p>Access to justice via public dispute resolution in the courts requires a certain number of judges to handle the volume of disputes, and failure to have a critical mass of judicial officers leads to delays or denial of justice. Numbers alone though are clearly not enough. Efficient systems of court administration and dispute resolution are also required, particularly if a jurisdiction attempts to eradicate a backlog. But can a jurisdiction prioritise efficiency without effecting substantive justice? This paper engages with this question by considering the experiences of Singapore, a common law country in Southeast Asia that overcame a large backlog. The process of backlog eradication is reviewed in order to investigate how efficiency and justice were conceptualised in these efforts, as presented in extra-judicial statements and academic scholarship. Particularly in the beginning of backlog eradication, efficiency took centre stage, but it does not appear to have been considered in isolation, and the introduction of business management principles introduced a theme of consumer satisfaction that developed into a robust approach to access to justice. Singapore&rsquo;s experience suggests that the connection between efficiency and justice is not a logically linear landscape, but rather an intertwined relationship in which efficiency and justice find a context-specific understanding.</p> <p>Al intentar erradicar un atraso, &iquest;puede una jurisdicci&oacute;n priorizar la eficiencia judicial sin que esto afecte a la impartici&oacute;n de justicia? Este art&iacute;culo se ocupa de esa cuesti&oacute;n, y para ello se fija en la experiencia de Singapur, pa&iacute;s del Sudeste Asi&aacute;tico de derecho consuetudinario que en los a&ntilde;os 90 solucion&oacute; un grave problema de acumulaci&oacute;n de trabajo atrasado, investigando la forma en que reformas judiciales relevantes conceptualizaron la eficiencia y la justicia. Al principio, la eficiencia pas&oacute; a primer plano, pero parece que no se consider&oacute; de forma aislada. La introducci&oacute;n de principios de gesti&oacute;n empresarial, que podr&iacute;an haber hecho augurar lo peor para la justicia, en realidad introdujeron la cuesti&oacute;n de la satisfacci&oacute;n del cliente, lo cual, m&aacute;s adelante, deriv&oacute; en un abordaje m&aacute;s s&oacute;lido al tema del acceso a la justicia. Esta experiencia hace pensar que la conexi&oacute;n entre eficiencia y justicia no es de una linealidad l&oacute;gica, sino que ambas se entrelazan y se entienden en relaci&oacute;n con su contexto.</p> <p><strong>DOWNLOAD THIS PAPER FROM SSRN:</strong> <a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=3076464" target="_blank">https://ssrn.com/abstract=3076464</a></p>