Langbroek; Fabri

Case assignment to courts and within courts; A comparative study in seven countries

The subject of this comparative study concerns a special aspect of judicial administration: the ways in which cases and judges within a court organisation and within a judicial system are brought together: case assignment. We found that case assignment is at the heart of case management, and therefore one of the main issues in judicial administration. It touches upon basic values of adjudication: efficiency and timeliness on the one hand and judicial independence and impartiality (and integrity) on the other. Hence it was illuminating to discover the very different ways in which countries like Italy, Portugal, England and Wales, Quebec, Norway, Austria, and the Netherlands arrange their case assignment systems. Following different policies in order to respond to an increasing demand for justice, these countries attach different weights to the value of efficiency and the value of judicial impartiality, resulting in different balances concerning their organisation of case assignment.