The experience with judicial governance: institutional setups and major problems

The introductory paper situates the book in theories of judicial governance and offers a general conceptualisation of the term. It first explains the historical development of the debate on judicial self-governance and delegation of power from the executive to the judicial branch. Next, it demonstrates why it is important to abandon the judicial-council-centric understanding of JSG and, instead, reconceptualises the JSG as an arena full of veto players actively part-taking in individual dimensions of judicial governance, shifting the focus on to smaller actors such as court presidents, judicial unions, judicial academies, court directors or judges seconded to Ministries of Justice. It explains the rationales behind various models of judicial self-governance and, finally, zeroes in on the role of informal institutions in that governance. It presents the methodology of the book European perceptions of judicial governance and explains the overall framework of the research as well as the logic behind the use of semi-strucutred interviews with elites. It also summarises results of interviews in pairs of new and old EU member countries that created systems dominated by judges, or judges cooperating with politicians. It first reviews to what extent elites see JSG as one of the dominant challenges faced by their respective judicial systems, asking whether elites relate the pragmatic shortcomings and deficiencies of courts’ functioning to the institutional set-up of their governance. Building on this awareness of elites about the importance of JSG models, the chapter further inquires what the major issues stemming from the distribution of judicial governance competences are. It poses the question whether elites see judicial or executive power as more appropriate to oversee the governance of the judiciary. The chapter highlights common topics appearing across Western and Eastern jurisdictions. It argues that irrespective of the JSG model, elites call for the formalisation of the decentralisation trend in judicial governance. They are convinced that more veto players can secure stronger checks and balances against both the risk of corporativism inside the judiciary and the political capture of JGS bodies.