Performance Indicators for Judges (1 Viewer)

[Tom Ruprecht]

Quality? Impossible to judge, says judge

Tim Dick
September 19, 2006

THE NSW Chief Justice, Jim Spigelman, thinks strategic plans are a waste of time, and he reviles management doublespeak. And don't start him on performance indicators for the courts.

Each year the Productivity Commission publishes measures of judicial performance, but Justice Spigelman is determined to stop a push to extend the tables to include a "quality indicator".

In a speech to the Australian Institute of Judicial Administration at the weekend, Justice Spigelman said measuring court performance was futile.

"There are significant areas of public decision-making - and the law is one of them - in which there is no measurable indicator of quality," he said.

Fairness was difficult to count, as were impartiality, honesty and accessibility, but all were essential to the administration of justice.

The danger of trying to measure justice, he said, was the managerial bias in favour of things that could be counted, and improvements that could be measured.

He fears that if they are imposed on the courts, figures could be manipulated, practices changed to improve superficial statistics, and judges encouraged to be popular - with no real increase in quality.

Internal gathering of information was fine, he said, but disclosing it could cause "perverse reactions".

"The judgements of courts are part of a broader public discourse by which a society and polity affirms its core values, applies them and adapts them to changing circumstances.

"I am concerned that if courts come to be judged by something called 'client satisfaction', then the administration of justice could be perverted in a search for popularity."

There was an inherent problem with litigation, because half of all litigants did not like the result, and sometimes nobody did. "Fidelity to the law sometimes requires this," he said.

The Productivity Commission's annual league tables did nothing to engender improvement through competition, he said, but they generated misleading media reports that failed to account for the differences between courts.
"If such a table were published in trade or commerce, it would be injuncted for … false and misleading conduct."

- SMH

 

[MoonlightSonata]

(As you know) Spigesy made a similar speech in 2002 about the dangers of applying economic principles to the legal sphere - point being that not everything that counts can be counted. For those who haven't seen it, it's a great read - here is the link

 

[Tom Ruprecht]

Performance indicators are a total crock. I can't even begin to imagine what they'd look like for the bench.

How 'accurately' judges apply precedents, thereby restricting dissent?

How many matters magistrates should deal with every day?

How 'client-focused/vertically integrated/core-competency emphasising/synergised' judges are?

Perhaps have one of those lame 80s mission statements? "To be the most just judiciary in the world?", which of course begs the question of what is "just", and along with that...all the conflicting ideologies that go with the meaning of justice.

Perhaps even float the judiciary on the stock exchange - calculate share price by how much 'confidence' the public has in court decisions.

Oh my, the possibilities. My head is about to explode.