• Title/Summary/Keyword: Allocation of Judicial Resources

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A Study on the Revitalization of Private Mediation System - Lessons from the Italy's recent Via-Mediation mechanism - (민간형 조정제도 활성화에 관한 연구 - 이태리의 '완화된' 조정전치주의 도입을 중심으로 -)

  • Lee, Jae-Woo;Oh, Hyun-Suk
    • Journal of Arbitration Studies
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    • v.31 no.1
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    • pp.129-154
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    • 2021
  • As our society and industry develop, disputes are becoming ever more complicated and diversified to the point that it is alleged that dispute resolution by court proceedings has certain limits and setbacks. Therefore, it is commonly suggested that mediation by a qualified mediator should come as an alternative method, and there have been many attempts to establish and provide mediation service in the courts and government authorities. To comply with a party's autonomy, which is the essential basis of mediation, and to promote the use of mediation, it is highly recommended that private mediation, rather than court-driven or administrative mediation, shall take the initiative. In the meantime, despite a number of academic research and attempts to increase the awareness and use of mediation nationwide, we have not yet seen meaningful developments due to the longstanding misunderstanding and discredit of mediation. In contrast, Italy has begun to revitalize mediation by enacting 'Legislative Decree No. 28/2020' following the 'Directive 2008/52EC' of the European Parliament and encouraging the so-called via-mediation policy. It is acknowledged to have significantly contributed to the development of private mediation in Italy and the increased use of mediation as a dispute resolution method. It shall be particularly noted that Italy's mediation proceedings have certain traits, including preliminary mediation meetings, mandatory involvement of legal counsel, and tax benefits for the settled cases by mediation. Italy's efforts would provide people with meaningful lessons and perspectives. As society strives to promote private mediation to distribute and utilize the judicial resources' inefficient ways, institutions need to develop practical measures to increase the number of civil and commercial disputes in the mediation proceedings. To that end, legislative efforts to enact relevant laws necessary to provide incentives to disputing parties and establish integrated education and certification programs to train qualified mediators need to start soon.

The Multi-door Courthouse: Origin, Extension, and Case Studies (멀티도어코트하우스제도: 기원, 확장과 사례분석)

  • Chung, Yongkyun
    • Journal of Arbitration Studies
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    • v.28 no.2
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    • pp.3-43
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    • 2018
  • The emergence of a multi-door courthouse is related with a couple of reasons as follows: First, a multi-door courthouse was originally initiated by the United States government that increasingly became impatient with the pace and cost of protracted litigation clogging the courts. Second, dockets of courts are overcrowded with legal suits, making it difficult for judges to handle those legal suits in time and causing delays in responding to citizens' complaints. Third, litigation is not suitable for the disputant that has an ongoing relationship with the other party. In this case, even if winning is achieved in the short run, it may not be all that was hoped for in the long run. Fourth, international organizations such as the World Bank, UNDP, and Asia Development Bank urge to provide an increased access to women, residents, and the poor in local communities. The generic model of a multi-door courthouse consists of three stages: The first stage includes a center offering intake services, along with an array of dispute resolution services under one roof. At the second stage, the screening unit at the center would diagnose citizen disputes, then refer the disputants to the appropriate door for handling the case. At the third stage, the multi-door courthouse provides diverse kinds of dispute resolution programs such as mediation, arbitration, mediation-arbitration (med-arb), litigation, and early neutral evaluation. This study suggests the extended model of multi-door courthouse comprised of five layers: intake process, diagnosis and door-selection process, neutral-selection process, implementation process of dispute resolution, and process of training and education. One of the major characteristics of extended multi-door courthouse model is the detailed specification of individual department corresponding to each process within a multi-door courthouse. The intake department takes care of the intake process. The screening department plays the role of screening disputes, diagnosing the nature of disputes, and determining a suitable door to handle disputes. The human resources department manages experts through the construction and management of the data base of mediators, arbitrators, and judges. The administration bureau manages the implementation of each process of dispute resolution. The education and training department builds long-term planning to procure neutrals and experts dealing with various kinds of disputes within a multi-door courthouse. For this purpose, it is necessary to establish networks among courts, law schools, and associations of scholars in order to facilitate the supply of manpower in ADR neutrals, as well as judges in the long run. This study also provides six case studies of multi-door courthouses across continents in order to grasp the worldwide picture and wide spread phenomena of multi-door courthouse. For this purpose, the United States and Latin American countries including Argentina and Brazil, Middle Eastern countries, and Southeast Asian countries (such as Malaysia and Myanmar), Australia, and Nigeria were chosen. It was found that three kinds of patterns are discernible during the evolution of a multi-door courthouse model. First, the federal courts of the United States, land and environment court in Australia, and Lagos multi-door courthouse in Nigeria may maintain the prototype of a multi-door courthouse model. Second, the judicial systems in Latin American countries tend to show heterogenous patterns in terms of the adaptation of a multi-door courthouse model to their own environments. Some court systems of Latin American countries including those of Argentina and Brazil resemble the generic model of a multi-door courthouse, while other countries show their distinctive pattern of judicial system and ADR systems. Third, it was found that legal pluralism is prevalent in Middle Eastern countries and Southeast Asian countries. For example, Middle Eastern countries such as Saudi Arabia have developed various kinds of dispute resolution methods, such as sulh (mediation), tahkim (arbitration), and med-arb for many centuries, since they have been situated at the state of tribe or clan instead of nation. Accordingly, they have no unified code within the territory. In case of Southeast Asian countries such as Myanmar and Malaysia, they have preserved a strong tradition of customary laws such as Dhammthat in Burma, and Shriah and the Islamic law in Malaysia for a long time. On the other hand, they incorporated a common law system into a secular judicial system in Myanmar and Malaysia during the colonial period. Finally, this article proposes a couple of factors to strengthen or weaken a multi-door courthouse model. The first factor to strengthen a multi-door courthouse model is the maintenance of flexibility and core value of alternative dispute resolution. We also find that fund raising is important to build and maintain the multi-door courthouse model, reflecting the fact that there has been a competition surrounding the allocation of funds within the judicial system.

Growth of Felonies after the 1997 Financial Crisis in Korea (외환위기 이후 흉악범죄의 증가와 정부의 범죄억지정책)

  • Kim, Duol;Kim, Jee Eun
    • KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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    • v.31 no.2
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    • pp.155-194
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    • 2009
  • The Korean economy successfully overcame the macroeconomic downturns driven from the Asian financial crisis in a very short period of time. The economic shock, however, generated a variety of social problems, one of which was the increase in felonies (homicides, robbery, rape, and arson), or degradation of public safety. We argue that the Korean criminal policy has not been effective to ameliorate the rising trends in crime caused by the financial crisis. In order to substantiate this claim, we assess the effectiveness of criminal policy: policing, sentencing, and corrections. First, there has been resource shortage in policing since the 1997 financial crisis. For the past ten years, the investment of human resource and budget in the police has been virtually stagnant, as well as in prosecutors' investigation activities. The insufficient resource allocation in policing caused a huge decline in arrest rates and prosecution rates. Second, the Korean judicial system has not increased the severity of punishment. Comparing the pre- and the post-financial crisis period, the average length of prison sentence by the courts has declined. Given the degrading in the quality of crime and the decreasing amount of inputs into the policing and prosecution, the government should have increased the severity of punishment to deter crime. Third, we found that the government hired more officers and allocated larger budget into prison and probation. However, it is difficult to suggest that the increased level of resources in correctional programs have been effective in preventing released prisoners from committing future crimes. This is because the number of repeat offenders convicted of more than a third offense increased dramatically since 1997, pushing felonies upward. In sum, the government organizations failed to respond respectively or to make coordinated actions, eventually causing a dramatic increase in crimes. This research brings explicit policy implications. In order to prevent possible additional degradation of public safety, the government must put more efforts into increasing the effectiveness of policy and to investing more resources into said policies. We also emphasize the importance of the institutional mechanisms which foster policy coordination among the Police, the Prosecutor's Office, the Ministry of Justice, and other relevant government organizations.

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