Quality of Judicial Organisation and Checks and Balances

This comparative work looks at approaches to judicial administration in France and the Netherlands within the frameworks of the judicial systems and constitutional law. It explores the possibility of creating a normative way of assessing the quality of the judicial organization. The argument is put forward that legitimacy of judicial power is related to the functioning of the organisation. Therefore it looks primarily at how organisational values and judicial independence operate at the level of the court sector, central administration and the separation of powers. The analysis further leads to the proposal that the judiciary can be held constitutionally accountable for its organisation or lack thereof. Data taken from interviews in courts, Ministries of Justice, and Councils across the Netherlands and France provide rich detail on judicial administration for this book. In a new field of study where very little raw data is available, this book provides academics with new insights and important raw data. The results give rise to fundamental questions not only on the issue of judicial administration, but also on the operation of the constitutional obligation that judges must handle cases independently.