In an effort to present the judicial management assessment and model proposed by JSCA and Fundación CONSTRUIR for Cochabamba, a socialization workshop was held in that city today. The event was attended by over 40 judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, representatives of justice sector organizations and judicial system operators.
The activity is part of the “Pilot Project for Modernizing Judicial Management and Promoting the Use of Oral Procedures in Six Cochabamba Courts,” which seeks to support the implementation of civil, criminal and family justice reforms in Bolivia through the proposal of a new management model. This proposal will allow for changes to the work processes to be tested. Said changes will take place on various levels: i) case processing, separating mere paperwork from procedures that require more in-depth analysis; ii) hearing management so that they are held or rescheduled in a timely manner; and iii) organizational, designing or redistributing tasks in order to achieve more efficient judicial management. In addition, there is a proposal to use electronic notifications.
All of the changes that will be explored during the pilot project seek to make use of economies of scale and to separate administrative functions from jurisdictional ones so that judges can spend most of their time issuing rulings that require important legal analysis.
The workshop was inaugurated by Cochabamba Supreme Court justice Esteban Miranda; the Chief Justice of the Cochabamba Regional Court, Jimy Rudy Siles Melgar; JSCA Director of Research and Projects Marco Fandiño; and Mariela Ortiz of Fundación CONSTRUIR.
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The pilot project will implement this new management model in two civil and commercial courts, two family courts and two criminal investigation courts in Cochabamba. The first stage of this process was the assessment of the courts’ work. A management model developed on the basis of the results was presented at today’s event. It will be followed by training of judicial and administrative stakeholders and then implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the results.