Quality Development in the Field of Justice by Apogee Information Systems

Quality Development in the Field of Justice

ISBN 978-90-6779-211-0 ÂŠ 2008, European Institute of Public Administration. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without prior written permission of the publisher, EIPA. For translation or reproduction rights please contact: European Institute of Public Administration, O.L. Vrouweplein 22, P.O. Box 1229, 6201 BE Maastricht, the Netherlands. EIPAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s website: http://www.eipa.eu Sales and distribution worldwide: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg ISBN 978-92-9203-008-7 Typeset and printed by the Publications Service, EIPA, the Netherlands

Quality Development in the Field of Justice

Editd by

Patrick Staes Nick Thijs

The European Commission supports EIPA through the European Union budget

The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and are not in any way intended to reflect those of EIPA. The revision of this text was done externally.

Table of Contents

Pages Note on Authors

vii

Introduction Nick Thijs and Patrick Staes

PART ONE: Towards Quality Management and Organisational Improvement in the Field of Justice Chapter 1: Quality of Courts and Judiciary: European Experiences and Global Developments Dr. Pim Albers

Chapter 2: Towards Organisational Performance and Organisational Improvement Nick Thijs and Patrick Staes

PART TWO: The Journey Towards Quality Management in Justice: Some National Experiences and Cases Chapter 3: Quality Work and Quality Benchmarks in Finnish Courts Jyrki M채채tt채

Chapter 4: Aspects of Quality Management in the Courts of Denmark Gerd Sinding

Chapter 5: Dialogue as a Critical Factor in Improving the Functioning of the Court of Appeal of Western Sweden Marie B. Hagsgård

Chapter: 6 Quality-based Justice: The Experience of the Bolzano Public Prosecutor’s Office (Italy) Cuno Tarfusser

Chapter 7: Can a Quality Management Approach Provide a Needs-Response to Issues Facing the Judiciary? Strengths and Limits of the CAF Model Benoît Bernard

105

Chapter 8: Measuring Quality in the Public Prosecution Services: A Belgian Case Elke Devroe, Saaske De Keulenaer and Diane Reynders

121

Chapter 9: A Quality Management Approach in the Judiciary in the Netherlands Herman Fijn and Charlotte Keijzer

137

Conclusions Nick Thijs and Patrick Staes

145

Note on Authors

Dr. Pim Albers

Special Advisor CEPEJ, Council of Europe (Strasbourg) (FR)

Benoît Bernard

Université Libre de Bruxelles, Head of Research at the Solvay Business School, Public Management Unit, Brussels (BE)

Saaske De Keulenaer

Scientific Researcher, Department of Research and Development, Service of Criminal Policy, Ministry of Justice (Brussels) (BE)

Elke Devroe

Head of the department of Research and Development, Senior Scientific Researcher, Service of Criminal Policy, Ministry of Justice (Brussels) (BE)

Herman Fijn LLM, MC

Consultant with Prisma (The Hague) (NL)

Charlotte Keijzer LLM

Director of Prisma (The Hague) (NL)

Marie B. Hagsgård

Organisational Developer at the Court of Appeal of Western Sweden (Göteborg) (SE)

Jyrki Määttä

District Court Judge, Member of the Development Committee of the Quality Project (Rovaniemi) (FI)

vii

Diane Reynders

Advisor-General for Criminal policy, Head of the Service of Criminal Policy, Ministry of Justice (Brussels) (BE)

Gerd Sinding

Head of Reform and Development, Danish Court Administration (Copenhagen) (DK)

Patrick Staes

Seconded National Expert, Unit “Public Management and Comparative Public Administration”, EIPA, Maastricht (NL)

Cuno Tarfusser

Chief Public Prosecutor, Bolzano (IT)

Nick Thijs

Researcher, Unit “Public Management and Comparative Public Administration”, EIPA, Maastricht (NL)

viii

Introduction Patrick Staes and Nick Thijs

This publication deals with the development of quality management within the judicial sector of public administration. The key question in this sector is: How can the basic requirements of a legal system, such as equal justice for all and the independence and autonomy of the courts in administering justice, be combined with effectiveness, efficiency and quality? In order to attempt an answer to this question, two main themes will be dealt with: The first part will shed light on the theoretical side and introduce a variety of quality models and their historical contexts, whereas the second part focuses on the practical issues and provides examples of where and how quality management has actually been applied in the judicial sector. The first part, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Towards Quality Management and Organisational Improvement in the Field of Justiceâ&#x20AC;?, raises the most basic questions every organisation is confronted with, when wanting to assess its performance: How well are we doing? For whom are we actually performing? What are our targets? To answer these questions, it is necessary to understand what the concept of organisational performance means, and how assessing it will lead an organisation to the next concept, that of organisational improvement. The first chapter describes the work in a wider European context by defining quality in the field of justice by the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ) of the Council of Europe. The second chapter discusses the evolution of quality management and the various models available, such as the CAF, EFQM, Balanced Scorecard, ISO, etc. The most in-depth look will be taken of the CAF model. In its analysis we consider questions such as: Why is the model used? What are the benefits? How do improvement initiatives result? What are the main obstacles to achieving organisational improvement? And most importantly: How do we operationalise the concept of organisational performance?

Patrick Staes and Nick Thijs

The first part of this publication, giving a theoretical approach to organisational quality and improvement, naturally leads to the second part, where the theoretical principles are illustrated by practical examples. The second part, “The Journey Towards Quality Management in Justice. Some National Experiences and Cases”, takes a close look at the practical side of introducing quality management in the judiciary. The selection of cases provided is intended to shed light on the theory and highlight some of the problems encountered and solutions found in practice. The first example is from Finland, where the journey to improved quality began in 1999, when nine courts in the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeal in Rovaniemi started a joint effort with the aim of achieving fairer trials, more accessible services, and well-reasoned decisions. The means employed were quality benchmarks, divided into six aspects containing 40 quality criteria, in order to be able to cover as many operations of the courts as possible. Continuing our northern European journey for quality, the second case comes from Denmark. The courts of Denmark all share the same vision and values, agreed upon in 2001. One of their quality approaches is to identify focus areas at the beginning of each year. These are subsequently incorporated into the individual action plans of the courts. To allow for a benchmarking system among the courts, CAF was launched in the Danish courts. In addition, the Danish courts work with internal best practice consultants to assure continuous discussion about the quality of the work of the courts. The Court of Appeal of Western Sweden serves as our next case. Having discovered that communication, and hence dialogue, is one of the most crucial factors for improving the overall performance of the court, the Court of Appeal launched its quality initiative in 2003. Both internal and external dialogue helped the court to improve its functioning and reach higher levels of satisfaction for employees as well as external stakeholders. A case from the Bolzano Public Prosecutor’s Office in Italy is introduced next. There it was found that a growing discrepancy between administering justice and those who are administered by justice was contributed to by the obsolete organisation of the office itself. Hence the office introduced a pilot project for reorganisation and optimisation of the Bolzano Procura in 2004. Four tools were used to improve the office’s functioning: the services charter, ISO, the social report and information systems. Its improvement actions included better communication, visibility and drawing up an action plan to work more efficiently. Furthermore, a double Belgian case has been included. It demonstrates the sociological and managerial effects of a pilot quality approach, as implemented within two public prosecution departments in Belgium. The

Introduction

problems most often cited in public prosecution offices in Belgium were identified as due to poor internal organisation, excessive workloads, resources-related issues and lack of communication. In this case, the CAF model was chosen, thereby leaving the political implications aside by placing the focus on managerial and pragmatic aspects. In its practical application, the approach revealed itself to be instrumental in not only establishing a diagnosis, but also heightening awareness of the interdependencies governing a judicial department. In terms of impact, it led to changes internally for workload sharing and, externally, to greater attention being focused on the organisational environment as well as on users of the judicial system as a whole. This case is supplemented by a second Belgian case on the next steps and the way forward for this major quality management initiative. The final story is from the courts and the Ministry of Justice in the Netherlands. The ministry launched a project for improving quality in court organisations, which was subsequently entrusted to a specially created agency called Prisma. This office supports judicial organisations in implementing quality management. The Dutch INK management model was employed and, among other quality measures, staff surveys were used to test satisfaction levels. This chapter provides a bridge between the practical cases and the drawing of some overall conclusions regarding the possibilities and difficulties of installing an organisational quality management approach and culture in the judiciary field. All these cases offer a practical view on how quality management fits into the judicial sector and how it can actually contribute to improvement. They also show how the concept of organisational performance has been operationalised in each instance. We sincerely thank all the authors for finding the time to write about their experiences within their busy professional schedules. We also thank Lena Heidler for her practical support and Denise Grew for all the layout work in the making of this book. We hope that this book will contribute to the debate and growing dynamics of introducing organisational quality in the field of justice. The organisations quoted in this book (and many other examples) provide the proof that it is possible.