5. COURT ADMINISTRATION

5.1. General Remarks

If one wants to strengthen the Judiciary in Bulgaria, it is absolutely necessary to deal with the court administration also. A good court administration is the basis of an efficient Judiciary. They are extricable connected with each other. Various kinds of management models can be used. The model has to be discussed with the Bulgarian actors in this field.

Information out of the Judiciary and the MJELI itself has taught me that the Bulgarian court administration has a lot of weak components. First of all there seems to exist a big distance between the Judiciary and the court administration. It is important to make both parties aware about their joint responsibility for the efficiency of the courts. A good court administration ameliorates the whole level and status of the Judiciary. In good co-operation between the Judiciary and the Ministry of Justice as facilitator the court administration has to be taken a close look at.

Secondly something has to be done about the general quality of the administrative staffing of the courts. The administrative departments of the courts are overstaffed, but very much underqualified at the same time. As a result of this, a lot of work is not handled by the administrative staff. To say it more clear all kind of administrative operations take much more time than necessary, because the administration do not know how to act. This is the reason that a lot of administrative operations end on the table of the president himself, because no one is able to take care of it. This is what one can call delegation from bottom to top. Some presidents of courts have told me that they can do their administrative work with at least half of their staff if the administrative would be qualified.

So a reorganisation of the current court administration is absolutely necessary. More qualified members of the administrative staff have to be recruited. Sitting administrative staff members have to be schooled or dismissed.

Finally it is important to describe the administrative procedures, to make a clear distribution of work, to develop administrative working models, to make instructions of document handling, etc. These instructions can be of great help to create an efficient court administration.

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5.2. Concrete Project Plans Proposed

In order to streamline the administration within the courts the applicable regulations should be revised to make the procedures more flexible and understanding. Reorganising the administrative departments and training of the administrative staff should be considered. At the moment it is the president that is responsible for the court administration. It should be regarded whether this responsibility must be exercised by a magistrate or by a professional court administrator, who will also be the chief of the administrative personnel. Computerisation of the procedures and of the regulation of the internal flow of information is of great help indeed, yet it is not the panacea for the problem. For as far as computerisation will be considered, it should be seen as an auxiliary, not the solution. Computerisation must be incorporated in a good court administration, according to policy plans for the whole courts. Also it should be taken in mind that at present there is no software especially developed for handling court administration. Where computerisation of procedures is considered, designing and developing of necessary software should be included. Furthermore, training in this field should be provided in that case.

Concrete actions to be taken in this respect are:

• Making an inventory of the current administration system. At first it should be clear how the court administration is regulated at the moment and which rules do apply. In this respect the function and powers of the Inspectorate must be taken into consideration as well. Part of the inventory should be an evaluation of the current system. In this evaluation attention must also be paid to the existing possibilities for the general public to have access to all information and the consequences thereof. Furthermore, the system of the internal flow of information (filing on paper) should be added to the evaluation. On the basis of the evaluation conclusions should be drawn on the workability of the current system and propositions can be made for ameliorations.

• Reorganising the internal structures of the court administration. On the basis of the outcome of the above mentioned evaluation and revision, the internal structures of the court, for as far as court administration is concerned, should be changed to a workable system. It should be regarded whether the overstaffing of the administrative departments of the courts could be reorganised by dismissing redundant and not functioning staff. To create a structured system of administration within the courts and cultivate responsibility with the administration itself, for example a chief court administrator should be nominated in each court. The chief court administrator will be in charge of the administrative department and will give lead to the daily activities of it. On the basis of such a model, a structure for court administration can be built.

• Establishing a system for training in court management for presidents and the chief court administrator. The president as the person who bears the final responsibility and the court administrator who is the daily responsible person for the administration should be trained in the way in which they should shape the court administration, their respective position in it and their co-operation.. The division of tasks and power between the president and the court administrator must be dealt with in a course.

• For as far as computerisation is considered, nomination of pilot courts to try out newly developed computerised systems for court administration and new ways of court administration must be envisaged. The pilot courts can be of great help in the fine-tuning of new structures and soft- and hardware to be developed.

• Train the basic administrative staff in professional skills. To overcome the problem of underqualified administrative staff members, training should be provided on a basic level. Training should focus on practical skills, necessary for the execution of the function of administrative support, such as communication skills, organising and creating sense of responsibility. Furthermore, job qualifications should be described and a uniform selection method for staff members must be developed. Underqualification is indeed a question of recruitment and selection as well.

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