Presentation to No 2 Dimplomatic Club
March 7, 2001
Center for the Study of Democracy
Court Administration: Problems and Future
Presentation by Ms. Kapka Kostova, Chair of Sofia Regional Court
Within the framework of the ongoing judicial reform
in Bulgaria the issue of the necessary changes in Court
administration is unjustifiably passed by. In our capacity of
judges we are aware of the significance of this part of the Court
structures and of the extent their good or poor performance is
predetermining our own work. Even the most perfect judge is
absolutely helpless without a well-organized and effective Court
administration.
After all this is not just a simple system for
initiating and processing of cases. This is a system of structures
working under explicit rules and performing a large scope of
activities. Its main purpose is to assist judges in their work, to
maintain contacts with persons that address the Court as well as
the contacts with other institutions, to provide timely, correct
and complete information supporting the making of proper managerial
decisions.
This system has its political and social basis as it
directly impacts the public attitude and reaction towards the
judicial institution. It is an important part of the Court’s image
and a mechanism for defending Court’s independence being a part of
its self-management, as a really independent judicial institution
is the self-governing one. Historically the Court administration
system has been initially introduced with the idea to guarantee
such self-governance and independence of the judiciary – political,
social, structural and financial. Another very important motive for
its establishment was the existing misbalance in the work of the
separate Courts. Courts have not operated with equal effectiveness,
which is unfair for citizens and society. And last, but not least –
Court’s initial financial dependence of the executive power has
caused the necessity of establishment of this orderly system for
self-governance of the judiciary.
Bulgarian Courts administration has barely changed
through the years and this has both positive and negative aspects.
The reason for this slow change was due to the Court system
conservatism. The latter protects the system but it also retains
its adequate development as related to the development of the
social relations.
At present Court registration offices are operating
under hopelessly obsolete rules, which impede the development of
the judicial proceedings, the information flow,
Courts in-house administrative relations as well as relations with
outer institutions.
The employees perform in poor conditions and there
is no one responsible for their preliminary and current training. A
number of books and registries are maintained but mainly
manually.
There is no modern secondary legislation on the
structure and functioning of Court administration and no uniform
regulation of the Courts operations, the public prosecution offices
and the investigation services.
Currently the organization of the work of judicial
officials and the administrative control and management over them
is regulated inadequately and imperfectly with few provisions in
the Law on Judiciary and by an obsolete secondary legislation
act.
The negative impact of all that appears in several
directions:
1. A large
staff performs the administrative activities in the Courts. The
correlation between staff and judges is approximately 2,5:1. The
main problem is that this activity is organized in an extensive
manner, which impacts manpower, financial resources, technical and
intellectual potential on one hand and to poor results on the other
hand.
2.
Meanwhile judges are responsible for a number of administrative and
technical activities along with their direct legal work, which
results in waste of their time, knowledge and energy.
3. Those,
occupying managerial positions, are overloaded with lots of
untypical administrative, financial and daily responsibilities,
which make them insufficiently effective both in this field and in
their main responsibilities to organize and manage the judicial
activities. Even the wealthiest countries cannot afford their
experienced judges to perform such activities, but they have
established the Court administration system to serve judges.
Unfortunately during the recent years in Bulgaria,
in an indisputably complicated situation and in great dynamics in
the Courts operation, lesser attention was paid to the work of
Court administration.
Judges themselves initiated all these achievements
under projects with outer donors. Despite of their success these
activities as a whole have the characteristics of a certain state
of chaos and unclear vision for the pursued final result.
The problem is complicated and versatile one and it
comes down to a qualitatively new vision on the way of organization
of Court administration and the rules governing it, on the type and
number of the necessary staff, on the management of the
administrative processes, on the functions and role of the Court
chairman, and on the relations and contacts with other
institutions.
Therefore it is necessary an entirely new
concept for the organization of the performance of Court
administration to be elaborated.
A serious discussion on this issue should be carried
out with the assistance of internal and external experts and the
visions on significant changes in Court administration activities
should be formulated.
The main principle of these changes could
be:
·
creation of a system for intensive work
performance;
·
clear rules for the operation of administration, including
hierarchy and subordination;
· clear
recruitment and control mechanisms;
·
internal mechanism for liability realization;
·
building of external offices serving directly the judicial
activities (defense covered by public funds, experts’ reports,
security, Court papers delivery, etc.).
The visions of judges on the substance and
parameters of these changes have been clarified to a great extent
in the course of a couple of working meetings and seminars as well
as in the course of our work on several projects with outer
donors.
However a lot of work is still forthcoming and
we are aware this as we have the will to complete it. |