1

 

INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR SOCIOLOGY OF LAW (IISL) OÑATI- BASQUE COUNTRY- SPAIN

Limits to Globalization The Case of the World Bank and Model

Court Reforms in Argentina

By Carlos José Perette

Thesis Director: Professor Halliday - American Bar Foundation

Master Program 2007-2008

2

Table of Contents

Abbreviations, 3

Introduction, 4

PART I: Globalization and Judicial Reform

1.1 Globalization of Law and Judicial Reform, 17

1.2 Judicial Reform in Latin America under the Frame of LAD and ROL Programs, 19

PART II: Judicial Reform in Argentina and the World Bank

2.1 The World Bank and the Promotion of the Rule of Law , 22

2.2 The Judicial Reform in Argentina and the World Bank, 23

PART III: The PROJUM

3.1 World Bank Court Development Project (PROJUM) as a case study, 29

3.2 Description of the PROJUM, 32

3.3 Actors and Agents in the PROJUM and the Argentinian Judicial Reform, 36

3.4 PROJUM Evaluation, 42

3.4.1 The PROJUM as a Pilot Court Model Program, 43

3.4.2 The PROJUM and the World Bank assessment, 45

3.4.3 The Evaluation of the PROJUM Outcomes through Organizational techniques, 46

PART IV: Explanations, 65

Conclusions, 80

Annexes, 84

Bibliography, 87

E-Journals, Newspapers, Internet Sites, 92

3

Abbreviations

AOJ: Administration of Justice

CPACF: Colegio Público de Abogados de la Capital Federal

FORES: Foro de Estudios sobre Administración y Justicia

IBRD: International Bank for Reconstruction and Development – World Bank

IFIs: International Financial Institutions

IMF: International Monetary Found

LAD: Law and Development

LDM: Law and Development Movement

LIL: Learning and Innovation Loan

NCSC: National Center for State Courts

PCU: Project Coordinator Unit also known as CPU in Spanish

PROJUM: Proyecto Juzgado Modelo – Model Court Development Project

ROL: Rule of Law

UAC: Common Administrative Unit

WB: World Bank

4

Introduction

In recent years, the agencies promoting judicial reform have proliferated in Latin America and

worldwide. At the same time, globalization has enhanced the possibilities of reciprocal influence

among judiciaries of different countries, the formation of international networks of justices

(Slaughter, 2004:65-103), making communication and cooperation between judges much easier and

more dynamic and, to a large extent, transforming the long-established forms of interaction.

In Latin America “the high-intensity globalization character of the reformist pressure on the

judicial system” (Santos, 2000:269), exerted by global actors, has also brought about the emergence

of new regional networks focused on judicial system both at local and regional levels. They are

mainly focused on judicial reform, conceiving it as a necessary step to institutional development and

the strengthening of democracy. For instance, CEJA (JSCA), an initiative held by American states

aiming at giving technical assistance to reform efforts undertaken in the American continent, is one of

the most important initiatives comprising American countries.

Another example of the increasing importance of judicial reform in the agenda of Latin

American countries is the Cumbre Judicial Iberoamericana, which includes the higher judicial levels

of Latin American countries, also including Andorra, Spain and Portugal. In the last meeting the

“XIV Cumbre Judicial Iberoamericana” was under the thematic banners of Judicial modernization,

legal security and predictability, access to justice and social cohesion (Revista Cumbre Judicial

Iberoamericana, 2008).

These global trends are taking place simultaneously with a tendency of politicization of the

judiciary which is broadening the traditional role of the Judicial branch in the division of state powers,

being previous concepts challenged (Sweet, 2000:127, Santos, 2000), mainly in Europe, where the

Judiciary and the Constitutional Courts have gained more and more political importance.

In Latin America Judicial Reform is fostered not only by the governments or regional

agencies, but also through the intervention of International Organizations, Multilateral International

Financial Institutions(IFIs), Government Agencies like USAID and many other European Foreign

Assistance Agencies, as well as by Private US and European Foundations (Carothers 2001, Domingo

et al, 2001; Salas, 2001).

5

As will be developed below, this study is based on globalization and law theories. Four main

“approaches to globalization and law” have been developed “-world polity, world systems, post-

colonial globalism, law and economic development-” (Halliday et al, 2006:1) . Law and economic

development is only one of the mainstreams existent in global legal studies. Even though LAD is only

one of the possible approaches, the study of this epistemic community will be more deeply

undertaken since LAD and ROL approaches have given rise to an enormous industry of programs

and provided the theoretical tenets in which global actors support their agency. This should not be

understood as if I had taken a position to support LAD theoretical approaches. On the contrary, I have

focused my study on this epistemic community in order to help explain a program, named PROJUM,

in Argentina. I conceive of LAD as another force operating in global legal affairs. This is so because

LAD has fostered legal institutional development and been a determinant for the increase of ROL

programs worldwide in which the PROJUM is framed. Due to this, an important portion of this study

will be dedicated to LAD analysis.

Bryant Garth(2002:1) argues that:

”resources and institutional support have multiplied tremendously, reflecting the fact that law and development programs are now at the forefront of the agendas of development agencies in the United States and Europe, the World Bank and the IMF, the State Department, the American Bar Association, and even the U.S. Supreme Court. There is now a rather large rule-of-law industry ready to compete for the ever expanding grant money and to promote “best practices” around the globe. Judicial reform is at the heart of today´s programs.”(Garth, 2002:1)

Judicial Reform and Rule of Law (ROL) programs in Latin America, undertaken with foreign

assistance, have intrinsically been linked to the concept of Development to the extent that the export

and transplant of western legal standards (Pistor, 2002) is perceived as necessary in order to produce

economic, political and social development.

At the initial phase, the first efforts in promoting legal and judicial change in developing

countries are historically rooted in the agency of US scholars in the 1960s, which saw law as an

important factor for economic development and, consequently, elaborated a body of doctrines in order

to export legal templates to developing countries. This movement is known as the Law and

Development Movement (LAD). LAD programs entailed investments in developing countries aiming

at provoking legal transformations which were focused mainly on the improvement of legal education

6

by means of the incorporation of interdisciplinary courses and the adoption of the US casebook

method of law teaching. (Salas, 2001, Tamanaha 1995)

The second movement, which began in the middle 1980s, is known as the Rule of Law (ROL),

differentiated from the first LAD but both sharing substantial relevant points in common. Law and

Development (LAD) and Rule of Law (ROL) programs are sometimes used as synonymous in this

paper, even though they correspond to different epochs and sometimes to different theoretical

approaches. Nevertheless, both concepts and ideas are engaged basically with legal and governance

matters aiming at securing free markets and property right protection worldwide.

The programs of “judicial reform” promoted by global actors and developed from the

postulates and axioms supported by LAD and ROL scholarship framed under a rationalistic Weberian

model of thought (Halliday et al, 2006 ) are only a small part in the global promotion of the rule of

law in this case through institution-building initiatives.(Salas, 2001: 17-46, Carothers, 2001;

Santos,2000; Rodriguez Garavito, 2006). Carothers (2003:3) summarizes briefly the main obstacles

that ROL initiatives have to face and, by doing so, the author frames conceptually the epistemological

limits entailed by ROL:

“Although the current rule-of-law promotion field is still expanding as it approaches the end of its second decade, it still faces a lack of knowledge at many levels of conception, operation, and evaluation. There is a surprising amount of uncertainty, for example, about the twin rationales of rule-of-law promotion—that promoting the rule of law will contribute to economic development and democratization. There is also uncertainty about what the essence of the rule of law actually is—whether it primarily resides in certain institutional configurations or in more diffuse normative structures. Rule-of-law promoters are also short of knowledge about how the rule of law develops in societies and how such development can be stimulated beyond simplistic efforts to copy institutional forms. And the question of what kinds of larger societal effects will result from specific changes in rule-of-law institutions is also still open. Although aid institutions engaged in rule-of-law assistance do attempt some “lessons learned” exercises, many of the lessons produced are superficial and even those are often not really learned. Several substantial obstacles to greater knowledge accumulation in this field persist, including the complexity of the task of promoting the rule of law, the particularity of legal systems, the unwillingness of aid organizations to invest sufficient resources in evaluations, and the tendency of both academics and lawyers not to pursue systematic empirical research on rule of-law aid programs. Whether rule-of-law aid is on the path to becoming a well-grounded field of international assistance remains uncertain.” (Carothers, 2003:3)

In this study, justice reform efforts, promoted through foreign aid1 in Argentina, will be addressed. In

order to evaluate the form in which these programs have been articulated in practice, one specific

program, financed by the World Bank in Argentina during the 1990s, has been chosen –The PROJUM.

                                                            1 From ROL programs a wide range of questions has arisen. A detailed study of them will not be undertaken in this

paper since ROL programs have to deal with an innumerable number of challenges coming from epistemological weaknesses, to pragmatic problems, from legal obstacles to gray conceptual zones and political struggles.

7

Two interconnected claims frame this study. The first one is formed by two paradoxically

competing claims which, in some sense reinforce the idea that in sociological matters non-definitive

conclusions can be taken for granted so as to exclude other approaches. The first claim is that the

Programs of Judicial Reform, financed by the World Bank in Argentina under the frame of LAD or

ROL paradigms, have produced very few effective changes and actual improvements in the National

Judiciary. The effectiveness and impact of these projects in provoking relevant judicial changes at

National Judicial levels in Argentina is addressed here through a deep study of one single Program

developed by the World Bank in Argentina: the Model Court Development Project (PROJUM), which

indeed became the unique program financed by the WB in Argentina aiming at producing judicial

reform in the national judiciary. Other programs financed by the WB at national level consisted of

grants or loans that pursued to obtain judicial sector diagnostics but not operational changes in the

national judiciary.

The first claim is also counterbalanced by a competing idea: Paradoxically and jointly with

their lack of effectiveness to produce sustainable judicial reform, the PROJUM and other initiatives

led by IFIs have had the virtue to establish Judicial Reform as a central governance point of the

Argentinian National Government Agenda. This phenomenon, in some way, has been complemented

with the agency of think tanks –“business oriented organizations” (Riggirozzi, 2006)- and with the

advocacy of civil society and NGO networks. Beyond their antagonistic positions and the disparate

assumptions held by think tanks and some NGOs about the character of the reforms, both of them are

engaged with the improvement of the Judiciary and the administration of Justice as a phenomenon

globally present (Rodriguez Garavito, 2006; Dezalay & Garth, 2002; Santos, 2000). In short, the

interconnected claims could be synthesized in that, despite the lack of effectiveness and poor results

obtained through the PROJUM implementation, the program had the virtue to reinforce judicial reform

as a central point of governance agenda.

The second claim is that to be successful the Programs financed with foreign assistance

aiming at producing effective judicial reform and improvement in Argentina must be rooted in more

empirical research and agency conducted before the launch of the program. It should take into

account local expertise in order to build a minimal consensus about the benefits and the forms of the

reforms, in which a strong leadership from the judicial governance authorities is critical for any

8

program success.(World Bank, 2002). In this order of ideas it is remarkable that previous and stronger

agency becomes a condition sine qua non in order to produce “ownership” (Shihata, 1995 b) by

Argentine local actors based on consensus and under strong support and leadership from judicial

governance authorities in order to generate successful outcomes.

To consider these claims this research focuses on one program launched in Argentina in 1998

through a loan given by the World Bank –IBRD Section2: The Model Court Development Project-

PROJUM as known in Argentina3- (World Bank,1998, 2006). The Model Court Development Project

(PROJUM) was launched in the late 1990s aiming at producing effective judicial reform in Argentine

National Courts in the context of legal and governance changes imposed on developing countries in

the last decades under the “rationalistic” schemes of deregulation, privatization and modernization of

the State as a direct effect of the Washington Consensus. The Pilot Program used 12 Federal Pilot

Courts: 10 of them located in Buenos Aires (4 Civil Courts, 3 Commercial Courts and 3 Social

Security Courts), 1 of them located in Resistencia Province of Chaco and another one located in Mar

del Plata, Province of Buenos Aires, the latter two with multijurisdictional competences.

In the PROJUM the accent was placed on the improvement of justice through managerial

techniques and, in consequence, the more political aspects of judicial reform such as the independence

of the judiciary or transparency were avoided. The local expertise and the social claims of the local

population of those days were not taken into account or completely heard. They had been pressing for

judicial independence and also social justice for a long time. The Reform attempt of the judiciary was

secondary to managerial aspects (Riggirozzi, 2006; Finkel ,2004) and, to some extent the WB

seemed to take a position in favour of administration policies held by the Argentine government of

those days, clearly engaged with current IFIs paradigms and pressures.

In order to promote governance reforms, aid agencies worldwide have elaborated a wide range

of programs that often impose evaluation as an integral mechanism of the program itself. In order to

measure or evaluate judicial performance and programs, results have been achieved by means of

different tools, key performance indicators and techniques which involve different kinds of                                                             

2http://web.worldbank.org/external/projects/main?Projectid=P050713&Type=Implementation&theSitePK=40941&pagePK=64330676&menuPK=64282137&piPK=64302789 Consulted on 24th. February 2008.

3 PROJUM is the usual widespread name to identify the program and its implementation in Argentina and here it will be used this name when referring to the Model Court Development Program.

9

scientific approaches, which are closely dependent on the goals followed by the evaluation. In other

words, there are multiple goals followed in judicial reform initiatives and, consequently, diverse tools

and techniques are utilized to implement the reform and to measure the results. One program, for

instance, can aim at improving the independence of Justice, another the access to justice, or the

promotion of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Mechanisms or to improve the court

management; there can be a comprehensive reform program or a specific small program like the

PROJUM, etc. The tools utilized to attain those results will be differentiated depending on the goal or

objectives of the program and involving different disciplines to accomplish the objectives followed.

The evaluation of the outcomes is usually weighted through judicial measurement indicators

which have given rise very technical- jurimetric evaluation systems monopolized by consultants and

very far from the current capabilities and skills of lawyers and judges. Legal studies in Argentina

provide the necessary knowledge to deal with legal cases but not with the necessary administrative or

organizational notions in order to properly lead the administration of courts. The lack of a Judicial

School, which trains candidates to become judges, has also been a problem in Argentina. (Garavano,

interview N°6 )

The pilot court program consisted mainly of the improvement of judicial administration

through the introduction of case management techniques, staff training programs, layout adequacy,

computerized system provision, etc. The PROJUM required for its implementation the assistance of

external consultant experts in management and organizational matters. The task to modernize the

PROJUM Courts was not an easy task and demanded exceptional efforts from the Judges and

personnel thus overloading their work, which, to some extent, put under risk the whole program and

its outcomes.(Simari interview N° 11 and Bello interview N° 4)

Regarding the PROJUM, the tensions existent in the global scenario and the hegemonic and

counter hegemonic forces (Carroll, 2007:39) were also reproduced locally through the traditional

contesting ideological and political positions which often struggle to impose their own conceptions on

governance matters. Up to a point, these contesting positions, struggling for meaning building and

political influence, were present in the PROJUM by the reproduction of the tensions existent, for

example, between supporters of modernization theory and those of dependency theory.

10

One of the most important obstacles that the PROJUM had to face was to overcome political

and ideological struggles held by some of the actors involved. This was principally evident in the

contesting positions assumed by some members of the National Judicial Council. The Council (el

Consejo) is a collegiate body in which the deliberation is held under a wider democratic representation

and where political struggles are not rare. The Judicial Council, created in 1994 by the reformed

National Constitution to appoint National and Federal judges and with wide faculties in the

administration of the Judicial branch among others, played a central role in the implementation and

culmination of the PROJUM. It was the Council’s decision to follow the program after its continuity

had been in a risky situation under the sphere of incumbencies of the Ministry of Justice and Human

Rights, with very poor results for some years. It was not an easy task to conclude with the

implementation of the Program. It had to overcome serious resistance inside the Judicial Council, and

also from Judges and Unions representatives, and it mainly had to deal with a negative atmosphere

around the program. These together reveal one of the central problems of the PROJUM, which was the

absence of a minimal consensus in its implementation and the lack of a unified and solid political

decision and leadership.

The non-replication of the PROJUM in other national courts, a decision made by the Judicial

Council after the program ended, shows that the lack of consensus around the program rather than a

defective design of the program itself led to the PROJUM failure. Probably, if the Program had been

agreed on by main policy and research actors under a strong leadership exerted by judicial governance

institutions, the program would have been successfully completed and adapted in order to be

replicated. The non-replication of the program was decided because the short-term results of the

program were very poor and the WB’s lack of willingness in its support was remarkable. As a result of

the strong difficulties the program had to face, the Judicial Council decided the best choice was to

abandon the program. This lack of commitment to the program in some sense evidences a hazardous

waste of human and financial resources. The lack of commitment to program continuity is a serious

warning for local actors, mainly judges and court personnel, against this kind of programs financed by

IFIs where not only the seriousness of local governance authorities is in question but so too is the

credibility of IFIs.

11

In this paper the evaluation of the PROJUM and its assessment will be undertaken not only

through management techniques but also through other standpoints as will be more deeply

explained in the theoretical framework. A socio-legal approach will permit a wider evaluation of

the PROJUM results and the actors involved, the contesting interests, the mechanisms used, the

conditionalities, the power supporters and detractors, the outcomes and the impact of the PROJUM

(Halliday et al, 2006).

This paper begins with the analysis of the theoretical framework in which this study is rooted

and the methodology and empirical research conducted. It is divided into four parts besides the

introduction and the conclusions. The first part of the study “Globalization and Judicial Reform” is

divided into two sections: 1. Globalization of Law and Judicial Reform; and 2. Judicial Reform in

Latin America under the Frame of LAD and ROL Programs. In the second Part this study turns to the

Argentinean Judicial Sector assessment, the role of the World Bank as a financial unit for the

promotion of governance reforms, as knowledge producer and meaning exporter mainly in developing

countries and in the Argentinean Judicial Reform; it also includes the programs financed by external

donors and internally produced by Argentine stakeholders. In the Third Part, the main section of this

paper, the specific program of the PROJUM will be depicted and assessed under a variety of

approaches aiming at giving relevance and meaning to this research study. Part Three is divided into

three sections: 1- the description of the PROJUM; 2- Actors and Agents in the PROJUM and the

Argentinian Judicial Reform ; and 3- the PROJUM evaluation. The chapter for the evaluation of the

PROJUM is divided into the following subsections: The PROJUM and the World Bank assessment;

the PROJUM as a Pilot Court Model program; the evaluation of the PROJUM outcomes through

managerial techniques. Finally, the last part provides the final explanations in which the program will

be approached under a deeper contextual socio-legal analysis.

Theoretical framework:

The pressures exerted by IFIs and the intervention of foreign actors in domestic legal systems are not a

new trend in the world. The great influence of Romanic law over western legal systems spreads its

influence up to our days. The pressures for the adoption of unified legal systems were not a minor

question in the “new world” territories incorporated by European conquests of America and other

regions assisted by legal or cultural-religious patterns where European legal models were transplanted

12

in the newly conquered territories. Entire civilizations were almost extinguished in many parts of the

world and those remaining alive had very few chances to impose their customs, causing their own

legal conceptions to disappear or to be maintained in closed indigenous frames. These legal

interactions evidence an ongoing process up to now but these legal exchanges among different legal

cultures, which, during centuries were framed into the nation state political divisions, are facing a new

global challenge in which nation-state paradigms are being supplanted or at least challenged by new

waves of global standardization of law. (Pistor, 2002)

The new American states imported the legal systems from their colonizing countries and

almost nothing “officially” remained from the former indigenous “legal systems”. French, Spanish,

Portuguese, Dutch, German and English law expanded in America, Asia, Africa and other colonized

territories. The Napoleonic Codes, under the umbrella of the Nation State, gained an enormous

influence over continental Europe and their colonized territories. The English common law spread its

influence over the British dominions in America and worldwide. (Berkowitz et al, 2001)

French Law -Napoleonic Codes- was in turn transplanted throughout continental Europe even

into Spain and Portugal, former colonizing powers in Latin America. The Spanish Legislation

influence -in power in the new world colonies until the independence of the Latin American countries

and even after- was supplanted by other legal families in the XIX century. Something similar

happened with the English dominions in America with the adoption of the English legal system. The

French law after the Napoleonic Civil Code expanded through Latin America and most of continental

Europe even to the ex empires of Spain and Portugal.

In this context and taking into account legal transplants in the last 200 years, Pistor, Berkowitz

and Richard (Berkowitz et al, 2001:166, hereinafter PBR) argue that “there have been three major

transplantations of legal codes”. The first one was the aforementioned transplant of French law and

English law. The second one, after “World War II” when “many newly independent states once

again borrowed legal code from major western powers” and “[t]hird, following the collapse of

socialist system in the late 1980s, countries in Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet

Union rebuilt their legal systems drawing heavily on the European and the United States

models.”(Berkowitz et al 2001:166). BPR argue that for “law to be effective, it must be meaningful

in the context in which it is applied so citizens have an incentive to use the law and to demand

13

institutions that work to enforce and develop the law.” In other words, law should be adapted to local

conditions in order to work more effectively. The BPR´ thesis is intrinsically connected to my claims

in this study, mainly the second one, when it argues that the Programs financed with foreign

assistance aiming at producing effective judicial reform and improvement in Argentina must be

rooted in more empirical research and agency conducted previously to the programs launching and

taking into account local expertise in order to build a minimal consensus about the benefits and the

forms of the reforms, in which a strong leadership from the judicial governance authorities is critical

for any program success.

The work of PBR is framed theoretically in “an emerging literature that attempts to explain the

variance of institutional development across countries”(Berkowitz et al, 2001:167) in which the most

relevant background for my study is the one conducted by Rodrik (2000, quoted by Berkowitz et al,

2001:167) “who provides empirical support for his argument that a well designed strategy for

institution building should take into account local knowledge, and should not over emphasize best

practices blueprints used in developed countries at the expense of local participation and

experimentation” (Berkowitz et al, 2001:167).

Rodrik’s argument about the relationship between blueprints and local knowledge are key

points and provide support to our thesis:

“Tacitness implies that much of the knowledge that is required is in fact not written down, leaving the blueprints highly incomplete. For both sets of reasons, imported blueprints are useless. Institutions need to be developed locally, relying on hands-on experience, local knowledge, and experimentation. The two scenarios are of course only caricatures. Neither the blueprint nor the local knowledge perspective captures the whole story on its own. Even under the best possible circumstances, an imported blueprint requires domestic expertise for successful implementation. Alternatively, when local conditions differ greatly, it would be unwise to deny the possible relevance of institutional examples from elsewhere. But the dichotomy--whether one emphasizes the blueprint or the local knowledge aspect of the process--clarifies some key issues in institution building and sheds light on important debates about institutional development.” (Rodrik, 2000:15-16)

BPR´s congruent argument of the “transplant effect” that the more adapted to local conditions the

more effective the legal transplants also theoretically frames the claims made in this study when I

analyse the reasons for the failures of the pilot court model implemented in Argentina.

In “The Globalization of Law” Halliday & Osinsky (2006) point out the elements necessary

for a comprehensive theory of Globalization and Law: Outcomes; Agents; Mechanisms; Power and

Structures and Arenas. They are constant concepts visible in legal globalization processes which

14

become relevant tools to sociologically frame global legal studies in order to overcome the” gaps in

explanation” and contradictions among the four main “approaches to globalization and law” -world

polity, world systems, post-colonial globalism, law and economic development-“(Halliday et al, 2006)

. In this study, these categories have been essential to frame theoretically and give account of the

factors intervening in the PROJUM, namely, the actors involved, the mechanisms used, and the

pressures exerted. The central thesis of Halliday and Osinsky (2006:3) is that “the closer the

globalization of legal norms and institutions reaches to transformations in core local values and

practices, the greater the contestation is likely around those norms.” This provides theoretical

sustainability to the main claims I make in this paper because the resistance to IFIs interventions in

judicial institution building in Argentina, by means of PROJUM, stemmed from central core values in

the Argentinian legal culture and judicial style.

In the scenario of legal globalization IFIs play a central role in the construction of a legal

global architecture (Pistor,2002; Halliday et al, 2006; Dezalay et al, 2002; Santos, 2000 ). IFI

hegemony (Halliday et al, 2007 a:285-292) and their apparently enormous power to exert pressure on

domestic legal systems has been challenged by local constituencies in many countries embarked in

legal or institutional adaptations. Sometimes IFI agency for legal change and adaptation of

international legal standards is foiled by the opposition of domestic stakeholders and local

governments like in the case of Indonesia, Korea and China. Domestic resistance mechanisms

mentioned include: Outright refusal; Invocation of Cultural Exceptionalism; Symbolic compliance;

Substitution of a solution recommended by IFIs; Temporal Delay; etc. (Halliday & Carruthers 2007a:

285-292). Such resistance, mainly Symbolic compliance, Temporal Delay and Invocation of Cultural

Exceptionalism, were also adverted in the empirical research conducted in this study.

Beyond the enormous power of IFIs and their long expertise in dealing with countries in crisis

IFIs also have to deal with strong constraints. First, IFIs “operate under severe time constraints in

emergency situations. They move from crisis to crisis, their attention span is limited, and their

resources are stretched to the limit, since each lawyer in the IMF Legal Department has

responsibilities for many countries on different continents. The World Bank had no lawyer specialists

dedicated to insolvency during the Crisis”(Halliday et al, 2007a:293). Second, IFIs recommendations

are based on not accurate diagnostics which are elaborated by IFIs “practitioners/diagnosticians.

15

Indeed, adequate institutional analysis requires skills that IFIs experts conventionally do not have.”

(Caruthers and Halliday, 2006)” (Halliday et al, 2007 a:293). Third, IFIs programs should be rooted

“on contextual, institutional and cultural conditions that are beyond the usual expertise of IFIs

professionals to discern”(Halliday et al, 2007 a: 293). Fourth, IFIs usually fail to “build support and

consensus within countries and political commitment from key constituencies.” In bankruptcy law,

for instance, the IFIs effectively represent the creditor community, and more accurately the foreign

creditor community” (Halliday et al, 2007 a:293). Fourth, “[t]he strongest critics of IFIs charge that

some IFIs compel countries to accept a ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution”:

“IFIs can appear careless of national sensibilities, of the loss of face of rulers in sovereign nations, and of the limitations on their powers. The exercise of economic muscle from Washington fuels the presumption that the laws represent the imposition of foreign interests. These in turn engender nationalist resentment that can be appropriated by local constituencies for political capital” (Halliday et al, 2007 a:294)

These limits to the IFIs hegemony were directly or implicitly present in the Model Court Program and

to some extent they are strictly linked to my claims in this study.

Research Design:

This study is based on empirical research conducted on the PROJUM. The most important research

activities undertaken were: (a) documentary analysis and the use of secondary sources; (b) surveys;

(c) hard data; (d) interviews; and (e ) in situ observation.

Documentary analysis and the use of secondary data: Much of the documentary sources in

this research were the result of a very complex process of selection from an incredibly huge amount of

material available on the topic of Judicial Reform, on the role of IFIs in the promotion of governance

programs, Law an Development and Rule of Law theories, evaluation methods of democracy

programs, socio-legal approaches to globalization, etc. In this process a wide range of documents and

theoretical approaches ought to be discarded. The selection criteria focused on chronological and also

logical reasons in order to sustain the initial thesis of the research which, in my opinion, have been

widely ratified by the empirical research.

Surveys: Two surveys were carried out among the personnel of Civil Courts N° 74 and N° 78

in the city of Buenos Aires, whose results are related in the respective section of this study. In total 12

Court employees were surveyed. The data obtained was very useful to compare with the previous data

16

available about the PROJUM and to weight the PROJUM impact mainly in comparison with

previous relevant data. Indeed, for the managerial evaluation of the PROJUM I followed the analytical

categories provided by the FORES-NCSC evaluation report (FORES-NCSC, 2005) in which some of

their conclusions have been translated because of the clarity of the report.

Interviews: In total 12 interviews were conducted, all in the city of Buenos Aires during the

month of July. The interviewees were: (1) Justice Dr. Juan Casas National Civil Court N° 74 ( 3

encounters) ; (2) Justice Dr. Carlos Molina Portela( 2 encounters) National Civil Court N° 46 ; (3)

Dra. Silvia Di Carli Private Secretary of Justice Dr. Guarinoni National Civil Court N° 78; (4)Diego

Bello- Court official National Civil Court N° 78; (5) Dra. Sandra Elena, FORES International

Programmes Coordinator and scholar specialist in Judicial Reform; (6) Dr. German Garavano, former

coordinator of the Comprehensive Reform Program in the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights and

scholar specialist in Judicial Reform; (7) Ing. Moisés Lichtmajer, (Phd in administration)World Bank

consultant. The Executive Director who implemented and concluded the Program; (8) Dr. Carlos

Cabral Hunter, responsible for the UAC (Common Administrative Unit) created specially by the

PROJUM; (9) Dra. Gabriela Guzzoni – Idem; (10) Dr. Juan Carlos Poclava Lafuente – President

Cámara de Apelaciones de la Seguridad Social; (11) Dra. Virginia Simari Justice National Civil Court

N° 75( extra PROJUM Court) and former PROJUM Executive Director (12) Dra. Iliana Bustos

Private Secretary of Dr. Casas National Civil Court N° 74;

In total, 24 people were consulted, 12 of them through surveys and the other half through

interviews. Some other informal talks were held but not included in the list because no results were

obtained. The interviews will be referred to in this paper when necessary for the narrative about the

PROJUM and in support of some claims.

The information obtained through the interviews and the surveys was very relevant to

contextualize empirically the study. The data relevance was strengthened by the previous evaluation

carried out by FORES- NCSC. At this point it is remarkable that the FORES-NCSC evaluation was

made in 2005 when it was too soon to reach deep and strong conclusions as the FORES report itself

warns, a warning confirmed by the World Bank assessment of the program (World Bank, 2006). For

that reason, my conclusions may at some time seem to contradict the FORES report. But indeed, this

should not be taken for granted since the goal of my empirical research was to look for the contesting

17

opinions about the PROJUM aiming at highlighting the blurred spheres where the interests at stake are

not self evident. The FORES-NCSC report is an exhaustive investigation of more than 400 pages that

was not available to the public since this report was granted with confidentiality for a period of two

years, during which it was not available to either the public or the researchers4.

In situ observation: Civil Courts in the city of Buenos Aires were visited. The Courts observed

were three PROJUM courts- N° 74, 46, 78 and one non PROJUM Court- N° 75-. UAC -Common

Administrative Unit- was also visited, which initially had been created for PROJUM courts and is

now also used by some non PROJUM courts.

PART I

GOLBALIZATION AND JUDICIAL REFORM

1.1 Globalization of Law and Judicial Reform

“The most notorious feature of the focus on the rule of law in the developing world from the mid 1980s onwards is the high-intensity globalization character of the reformist pressure on the judicial system. In Latin America, the institutions that exerts this pressure are the USAID, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Ford Foundation and the European Union(collectively or through some of its members).”(Santos, 2000:262)

The failure of communism and the end of the Cold War caused the change of the paradigms under

which the world had played after World War II. The triumph of capitalism produced a shift from the

old paradigms and left the social sciences orphaned of strong scientific tools to understand and

explain the new social dimension challenged by the continuous and, sometimes, frenetic changes

operated daily through what is called the informational era in a network society. (Castells, 2000,

Slaughter, 2004)

The current “globalization” phenomenon has raised a huge quantity of theories and research

in order to explain and understand globalization “in such global arenas as finance, business, culture,

religion and population” (Halliday et al, 2007 b:3) Paradoxically, law has been almost absent from the

“sociological studies of globalization” (Halliday et al, 2007 b:3)

                                                            4 For this provision after the confidential period, my sincere thanks to Héctor Chayer and Sandra Elena, specialists

from FORES.

18

It is relevant to stress here that globalization is a wide and sometimes enormous field of study

which necessarily claims for new tools and paradigms in order to proceed towards its scientific study.

Also, Santos (2000) has made an important effort to sociologically represent this phenomenon

of globalization in the realms of democracy and law. Santos (2000:254), when discussing “one of the

most puzzling phenomena of sociology and political theory in the 1990s, the greater social and

political visibility and protagonism of courts in several countries , and the global call for the rule of

law and the reform of the judicial system”, separates countries into core (US, Western Europe),

peripheral and semi-peripheral countries.

In core countries the central role of the European Court of Justice, when shaping the European

legal system, is stressed and, to a lesser extent, the European Court of Human Rights; the US is

featured as the motherland of legal and judicial activism producing the “Americanization” of judiciary

and its criticised effect: the “litigation explosion”. It is also worthy to remark the increasing power of

the Supreme Court in Canada and, in general, the expansion of the judicial power and the

judicialization of politics present globally.

In semi-peripheral countries, the author includes: Portugal and Spain(semi-peripheral

countries of Europe); Central and Eastern Europe countries that “underwent democratic transitions in

the late 1980s” in which the democracy and ROL programs promoted the adequacy of the legal

system to the market economy; Latin American countries where the ROL programs “have a strong

international component” with a “high intensity globalization character of the reformist pressure on

the judicial system”; and some African countries such as South Africa and some Asians countries like

India and South Korea (Santos, 2000).

In peripheral countries such as Mozambique and Cambodia the ROL programs “tend to be

extreme instances of high-intensity globalization” in which the reforms are often driven by the same

donors (Santos, 2000:264).

Turning back to Latin America, “the institutions that exert this pressure are the USAID, the

World Bank, the Inter American Development Bank, the US Justice Department, the Ford Foundation

and the European Union” (Santos, 2000).

“Two main contrasts must be noticed between trends in core countries and trends in semi- peripheral countries. On the one hand, while in core countries the reforms under way seem to respond to internal dynamics, even if conditioned by global trends, in some semi-peripheral countries of Central and

19

Eastern Europe and Latin America, the reforms are being conducted under high intensity globalizing pressure, a pressure dominated by American Institutions and American legal models. On the other hand, while in core countries the focus is mainly on courts, since the rule of law is taken for granted and legal reform is an established political process, in most semi-peripheral countries the focus is much broader, contemplating the rule of law and legal reform, as well as judicial reform”. (Santos, 2000:269)

1.2 Judicial Reform in Latin America under the Frame of LAD and ROL Programs

The intervention of foreign agents, with the aim of promoting legal or judicial changes in domestic

legal systems, proceeds from a very precise theoretical frame in accordance with the political

international division of labour predominant aftermath World War II.

Latin American countries are usually considered as a bloc by ROL programs receiving in

consequence a similar treatment from aid agencies. This similar treatment evidences, to some extent,

bias in the non-consideration of differences between Latin American countries and the lack of

adequacy of programs to local legal cultures. One of the arguments against the PROJUM, by some

Argentine scholars, was that the PROJUM model had not originally been designed especially for

Argentina but for another Latin American country.(Garavano, interview N° 6)

Judicial reform in Latin America is at the moment one of the most important issues in policy

agendas in Latin American countries. In the last years a plethora of specialized literature has been

raised on the topic as the multiplication of reform programs financed by external actors and a strong

increase of funds invested in the promotion of the rule of law and judicial reform programs

(Rodriguez Garavito, 2006; Salas, 2001; Carothers,2001 Domingo, 2001; Garth, 2002 ).

Rodriguez Garavito (2006) corroborates this phenomenon and calculated the amount of money

invested in Latin America and its surprising increase. The money invested changed from around 5

million US dollars, in the first generation of programs in the 1960s and 1970s, to almost one billion

invested in Latin America in the second generation of programs until 20045.

Historical backgrounds

Salas (2001:17-45) distinguishes three moments in ROL programs carried out with foreign assistance

in Latin America.

The Law and Development Movement:

                                                            5 See Rodriguez Garavito (2006) for a detailed study of ROL programs implemented in Latin America in which

there is a full range of programs and countries with the money amounts disbursed by aid agencies.

20

This was initiated in the 1960s by “US academics at leading law schools (Harvard, Wisconsin,

Stanford and Yale)” and rooted in the post-World War II modernization theory, which became

known as the law and development movement. These programs focused on “the improvement of legal

education by the incorporation of interdisciplinary courses and adoption of the US casebook method of

law teaching” and also comprised the “ creation of legal services for the poor.”(Salas, 2001)

“Law and development projects were part of a broader US foreign policy democratization agenda that included legislative reform, improvement of public administration and public safety. The most controversial assistance project involved upgrading the capacity of foreign police agencies to combat crime and curb potential revolutionary movements. The ´public safety program´ , as it became known, was active in numerous Third World countries with the financial support of USAID and usage of US police consultants”. (Salas, 2001:18-19)

With the famous article of David Trubek and Marc Galanter (1974), LAD initiatives ended with those

features, accused of naive and ethnocentric and after facing strong opposition from Latin American

stakeholders and also from the “US Congress following revelations of human rights abuses directly

arising from the public safety program”(Salas, 2001).

Administration of Justice: These initiatives were undertaken by USAID in the 1980s after the

failure of the first generation of LAD programs. In 1984 USAID launched the “El Salvador Judicial

Reform Project”(Salas, 2001:20). The Central American justice reform initiative was also launched

with funds coming from the US Congress and pursuing the “recommendations of the Kissinger

Commission on Central America”. This program was also extended to Guatemala and to “six South

American countries (Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru and Uruguay)”.These programs

were rarely carried out with cooperation of American universities (Salas, 2001).

“There were significant differences between the law and development movement and the administration of justice initiatives. First, law schools were not primary implementers of the programmes. Instead, grants were awarded to Washington-based consulting agencies. Second, primary reliance was placed on the usage of non-US experts with Latin Americans eventually becoming the most prominent group of advisors. Third, projects stayed away from legal education and no assistance was provided to Latin American law schools. Fourth, law drafting, with minor exceptions was avoided. Fifth, the United States government was alone in its reform strategy[,....] Sixth, the US saw government agencies as the primary local partner in these projects and involvement of non-governmental organizations[...] US planners viewed reform of the justice sector as a systemic enterprise in which all of the actors in the system had to be included in the reform. Law reform, by itself, for example was seen as a useless effort without a complementary reform of the institutions that implemented it.”(Salas, 2001:21-22)

Also AOJ initiatives results were widely evaluated as not satisfactory and the reform efforts as not

productive in the achievement of relevant improvements according to the goals pursued (Salas, 2001).

The Rule of Law (ROL):

21

ROL initiatives are the current name used to name the programs financed with foreign aid to produce

governance changes. These programs constitute a “second generation” of programs (Rodriguez

Garavito, 2006; Santos, 2000), deeply connected to the first movement of LAD , aiming to

transform Latin American legal institutions and invigorated after the fall of communism. The eastern

European countries and Russia needed new liberal and democratic institutions in order to adequate

their institutions to the new market oriented economies. In Latin America in the 1980s and 1990s, the

Washington Consensus6 influenced deeply the economic postulates and the public policies to be

implemented so as to dismantle the state through the neoliberal policies of deregulation and

privatization, which was counterbalanced with a menu of reforms with a strong institutional

component (Rodriguez Garavito, 2006).

The most important actors in Latin America in the promotion of the rule of law have been the

World Bank (WB), the Inter American Bank of Development (IDB) and the United State Agency for

International Development (USAID)(Rodriguez Garavito, 2006). The PROJUM is a concrete program

into ROL programs framework.

The most relevant factors, which led to this new wave of institutional reform efforts, were

mainly the failure of the neoliberal policies in countries with evident institutional weaknesses, the

                                                            6 The Washington Consensus is a term invented by John Williamson that constituted a group of proposals about

rational economic policymaking. It is interesting to reproduce here the opinion of the creator of the term: “ Ten years ago I invented the term "Washington Consensus". While it is jolly to become famous by inventing a term that reverberates around the world, I have long been doubtful as to whether the phrase that I coined served to advance the cause of rational economic policymaking. My initial source of concern was that the phrase invited the interpretation that the liberalizing economic reforms of the past two decades were imposed by Washington-based institutions like the World Bank1, rather than having resulted from the process of intellectual convergence that I believe underlies them.2 From this standpoint, much better terms would have been Richard Feinberg's "universal convergence" (in Williamson 1990) or Jean Waelbroeck's "one-world consensus" (Waelbroeck 1998). However, I have gradually developed a second and more significant concern. I have realized that the term is often being used in a sense significantly different to that which I had intended, as a synonym for what is often called "neoliberalism" in Latin America, or what George Soros (1998) has called "market fundamentalism". When I first came across this usage, I asserted that it was erroneous since that was not what I had intended by the term. Luiz Carlos Bresser Pereira patiently explained to me that I was being naïve in imagining that just because I had invented the expression gave me some sort of intellectual property rights that entitled me to dictate its meaning: the concept had become the property of mankind. To judge by the increasing frequency with which this alternative concept is being employed by highly reputable economists (such as Stiglitz 1999, n.33), I fear that Bresser had a point. The battle of economic ideas is, as McCloskey (1998) has argued, fought to a significant extent in terms of rhetoric. This means that the dual use of a term with strong ideological overtones can pose serious dangers, not only of misunderstanding, but also of inadvertently prejudicing policy stances. Specifically, there is a real danger that many of the economic reforms that the Bank tends to favor - notably macroeconomic discipline, trade openness, and market-friendly microeconomic policies -- will be discredited in the eyes of many, simply because the Bank is inevitably implicated in views that command a consensus in Washington and the term "Washington Consensus" has come to be used to describe an extreme and dogmatic commitment to the belief that markets can handle everything. The set of WDR 2000 consultations already held have led to questions about the consistency of the Bank's supposed ideological base and its commitment to reducing poverty.”(Williamson, 1999)

 

22

academic trend into the economics thought named “neo-institutionalism” and the democratization

process of the 1980s in Latin America (Rodriguez Garavito 2006).

It is relevant to remark that besides the explicit opposition between the human rights

movements and the neoliberal agendas, both have stressed the importance of the judicial reform and

the strengthening of the rule of law (Rodriguez Garavito, 2006; Dezalay et. al, 2002).

PART II

JUDICIAL REFORM IN ARGENTINA AND THE WORLD BANK

2.1 The World Bank and the Promotion of the Rule of Law

The World Bank official position in the promotion of the Rule of Law during the early 1990s is

represented by Shihata (1995a) when he argues that: 1) law has a powerful “potential” in promoting

social change and “progressive development” in an “orderly manner”; 2) ROL and well functioning

judicial institutions “are quintessential” for development, for the private sector and foreign

investments since they create certainty and predictability, reduce the cost of transactions and delays,

and protect property rights; 3)The enforcement of law through independent, accountable and well

functioning judicial institutions is as relevant as the modifications of the domestic legal systems in

order to generate a social atmosphere capable to struggle against corruption and arbitrariness from the

other branches of government; 4) Alternative dispute resolution mechanisms (arbitration7, mediation,

etc) are important tools for institutional improvement in Latin America; 5) “ownership” is an

unavoidable requirement for program success (Shihata, 1995 b:13-15).

The key elements to Judicial Reform Efforts from the World Bank standpoint are, namely:1-

Strengthening the independence of the judiciary; 2- Simplifying and updating legal procedures and

laws; 3- Improving the administration of justice; 4-Providing alternative mechanisms for dispute

resolution; 5-Improving legal education and training; 6-Expanding access to justice; 7-Improving the

quality of legal profession (Rowat, 1995:16-18).

                                                            7 International Center of Settlement of Investment Disputes(ICSID), “which is an affiliate of the World Bank and in

which the participation of Latin American countries have increased considerably from practically non representation in the past to the nowadays 21 memberships” (Shihata, 1995 a).

23

The WB article of agreements8 limits WB intervention to the mechanisms necessary to

promote economic development but prohibits WB intervention in political affairs. Through the

connection of law and judicial institutions to economic development, the WB has founded its

intervention in judicial reform programs by means of conceiving them as the necessary institutional

tools in order to promote economic development. Bryan Garth (2002:22) argues that this

interconnection and this intervention of the WB in the promotion of institutional changes can be a

source of conflicts and complaints from developing countries in a blurred sector where politics and

economics are not accurately differentiated. The Bank’s attention to governance matters and to legal

and judicial reform issues has been associated with its role as a development financer.

2.2 The Judicial Reform in Argentina and the World Bank.

“The cases of judicial reform and anti-corruption in Argentina proved that the capacity of the World Bank to institutionalise these projects in developing countries cannot rely simply on coercive means, namely the Bank’s financial-economic power. On the contrary, when the Bank is able to draw on its material and knowledge resources (i.e. forums, publications, learning programmes, training and capacity building initiatives, funded projects, and expert exchanges) to consolidate a pro-reform network with local actors, then it can have considerable influence in advancing and institutionalizing governance-related norms on the ground.” (Riggirozzi, 2007:11)

After 1983 when Argentina reestablished the democratic system, judicial reform focused mainly on

the removal of the judges who had been engaged with the previous dictatorial process. The

democratization process of the judiciary consisted mainly in renaming some of the judges who had

lost their positions during the dictatorship “Proceso de Reorganización Nacional”, the complete

removal of judges in charge of High Courts (National Supreme Court and Superior Courts in the

Provinces), and the ratification or the removal of those judges clearly engaged with the dictatorship

(Binder, 2006). In all cases, the new judges appointed should be engaged with the democratization

process.

                                                            8 “These limitations are: a) Being influenced by the political character of its members countries; b) Interfering in

the political affairs of members; c) Allowing political factors or events to influence its decisions. Therefore political considerations should be out except when they have an obvious economic effect relevant to its work. Despite this other than specific projects have grown since 1980’s. At present 25 % of the commitments of the World Bank are for “structural and sectoral adjustment loans, in order to get a good order or good governance through the introduction and implementation of appropriate rules and institutions.”(Shihata, 1995 a:219-233).

24

Even though the legal culture of Argentina, with a system stemming form colonial times, was

not basically altered by the democratization process, a new democratic atmosphere was installed in the

judiciary. An important commitment to the rule of law was done by Alfonsín´s administration

influenced by some prominent legal philosophers like Carlos Nino with “enduring ties” with the US,

the Yale Law School and legal liberalism advocacy (Dezalay et al, 2002: 238).

However, the manipulation of the judiciary by the Executive (Binder, 2006) has had a

chronic influence in power relationships among the government branches and is still a serious matter

which affects the independence of the judiciary and enforces the judiciary role as a gatekeeper of the

social and political privileges of some social, political and economic elites (Burgos, 2006:141-177).

“The courts in Argentina , for at least fifty years, have offered not resistance to the chief executive”

(Dezalay et al, 2002:240). Moreover, in order to become a justice, even in the last two decades,

lawyers needed political connections with the Peronist Party or the Radical Party.

Since the return to democracy in 1983, the independence of the judiciary in Argentina has

been one of the major issues of governance. This lack of independence became even more evident

during the administration of President Carlos Menem(1989-1999) when there was a widespread

suspicion of manipulation of the judiciary, “in which the judiciary became the political arm that

legitimized questionable procedures for the implementation of unpopular market and policy reforms”

(Riggirozzi, 2007:19). During the years of the Menem administration, the deep economic changes

enormously affected the way in which society had moved in the first model of development with the

preeminence of the state (Salacuse, 2000). In the new frame, important legal changes were required

for “elimination of budget deficits, strict control of money supply, privatization of State-owned

enterprises, and an openness to international trade and investment” (Salacuse, 2000:287) by strong

external pressures exerted by IFIs.

Concomitantly, the National Judiciary in Argentina suffered serious intromissions parting

from the Executive branch, which seriously affected the independence of courts and its reputation. In

those years the Supreme Court was qualified as the “Addicted Court” by some actors (Riggirozzi,

2006:45). The judiciary had to face serious accusations of corruption, which worsened the credibility

of the courts also undergoing frequent journalistic scandals.

25

In 1994, after the Pacto de Olivos (an agreement between the Peronist and Radical Parties) the

National Constitution was reformed promulgating the National Judicial Council as an independent

organ to appoint National Judges. The goal was to strengthen the judicial independence breaking the

link between the judiciary and the executive branch withdrawing the appointment of judges from the

hands of the Executive and alleviating judges from the constant pressures exerted on them by the

executive. Also in the Provinces new institutions were created to be in charge of the appointment and

removal of provincial judges. Even though Judicial Councils provoked some improvements in the

Argentinean Judiciary, the deficiencies are still far from being solved.

An independent Judicial school, as a previous step to become a Judge, would be important in

order to strengthen the judiciary and its transparency. The initial entrance to the judiciary is the way

to become a judge in Argentina at national level. Proof of this is that among the judges appointed by

the National Judicial Council there are practically no candidates coming from the legal profession.

Almost all, if not all the judges appointed by the National Council, come from the judicial career and

very few of them, if any, from the legal profession (Lynch, 2004). The aforementioned fact shows

how political concerns are still surrounding the Judiciary.

Binder notices the existence of four big streams operating in Judicial Reform in Argentina:

“The first of them focuses primarily on the administration of justice—stemming from the professional and human deficiencies in the system that can only be resolved by naming better judicial authorities. The second vision focuses on technical and administrative deficiencies and on the notion that the justice system functions poorly because technology is “weak, chaotic, and inadequate.” A third vision postulates the need to break the traditional hold of past practices of the inquisitorial system, with its authoritarian practices. According to Binder, these three visions of reform must be integrated into a clear strategy for judicial reform that is constantly tested and adjusted. Results to date have been very haphazard, with some important advances in the area of penal practice but very little on the civil law side, with some states [provinces] (Mendoza, Córdoba) showing strong progress but other states and the federal judiciary lagging behind.”(Deshazo et al, 2006)

In this context WB intervened in Argentina Judicial Reform.

“The vast appreciation of an inefficient judiciary and the costs of corruption for economic development were increasingly championed by international financial institutions, in particular by the World Bank. Since the early 1990s, new concerns within the World Bank's agenda about 'good governance' for development focused on legal and institutional reforms in social sectors; municipal development; privatization and private sector development; and anti-corruption and judicial reform (World Bank 2002, Riggirozzi 2006).” (Riggirozzi, 2006:45-46)

To some extent, and for a wide sector of the population, IFI interventions were seen as an imperialist

intervention, aiming at deepening the country’s poverty with the complicity of local elites aiming at

26

protecting their privileges. They were also perceived as supporting government policies which had

seriously affected wide sectors of the “middle class” economic capacity with increasing rates of

unemployment and condemning millions of people to poverty, strengthening the exclusionary

paradigm. The pressures exerted by IFIs and their support to unpopular policies of the government

made the WB credibility decrease. This social perception explains, in some way, the behavior of local

leftist actors who strongly resisted the PROJUM implementation. The WB election of Pilot methods,

focused on case management and judicial administration, fortified these suspects of complicity among

IFIs, Menem´s government and local elites strengthening a new phenomenon of extreme inequalities

and economic concentration, never seen before in Argentina.

This “negative” public image of IFIs and the role played by them in internal economic

transformations percolated to the other programs launched by the WB and the PROJUM was not an

exception.

“The involvement of the World Bank in judicial reform was triggered by a sector assessment undertaken between 1993 and 1995. In effect, the Ministry of Justice requested the World Bank to finance a comprehensive diagnostic study of the problems affecting delivery of justice in Argentina. The World Bank's Judicial Sector Study was carried out under a World Bank grant. The team that conducted the report was composed of Argentine lawyers selected by the Ministry of Justice and international experts that participated in other judicial reform experiences supported by the World Bank in the region. The problems of the judiciary were identified with the lack of independence, delays in trials and sentences, and widespread corruption. Court officers, including judges, personnel, and government officials were perceived to be at the root of the problem and the main obstacle to change (World Bank 2001a: ix-xi). A subsequent World Bank diagnostic work, the1996's 'Judicial Reform in Latin American Courts: The Experience in Argentina and Ecuador' also addressed these problems, which were discussed in various seminars with local actors from the Argentine social and political spectrum. Yet, despite the highly political issues raised by the report the World Bank designed a programme which narrowly focused on technical managerial aspects of the system related to justice delivery”(Riggirozzi, 2006:46)

Nonetheless, the reformist atmosphere, paradoxically prevalent in Argentina before the PROJUM

initiation, had already given birth to other reform initiatives. For instance, during the 1990s, an

unimaginable movement for ADR mechanisms had already been present with an enormous promotion.

This process, ultimately, led to the incorporation of mediation as a compulsory mechanism in the

Procedural Codes at National and at Provincial levels9 and placed Argentina in an international leading

role in ADR10.

                                                            9 Sections 286/291 bis of the Civil Procedure Code of Province of Entre Rios(where I have my residence place)

establishes the obligatory character of Mediation in certain civil cases as a previous step to open court jurisdiction. 10 In this movement for ADR an NGO the Fundación Libra played a key role. Fundación Libra was founded by

Elena Highton de Nolasco (currently Justice of National Supreme Court), and Gladys Alvarez .

27

In the following Tables, taken from the CEJA data base, can be observed the initiatives

undertaken at the national level until 2005 with international cooperation –Table 29- and with internal

support –Table 30-. These tables, in which some formal modifications were introduced and whose

translation to English is mine, were originally only available in Spanish.

Table 1

Tabla 29Projects  with International Cooperation 

Projects Names 

Description  Financial Sources  Executive Organism 

References

PROJUM  The Program  aims  to redesign 12 courts  in 

all the country, incorporating  new technologies, a new organization and a 

document management system. 

World Bank, Loan BIRF 4314 – AR, Project ARG 999/06.  US$ 5 

millions 

     Judicial Council.            www.pjn.gov.ar 

PROJUS Overall Judicial 

Sector Assessment 

Execution of remnant funds from a bigger loan to foment 

activities directed to the Access to Justice with the goal to 

produce a comprehensive judicial 

reform. 

Banco Mundial. Ministry of Justice and 

Human  Rights.   

Argentine Dialog Commision of 

Justice Diálogo 

Argentino – Mesa de Justicia‐ 

It is an initiative undertaken   with the representation of all the judicial sectors 

involved in Argentina to discuss and to reach consensus on  the general guidelines  under which judicial reform efforts should 

be undertaken. 

Fomented by the UNDP‐ United Nations Development Program 

Ministry of Justice and    Human  Rights 

                www.reformajudicial.jus.gov.ar  

Justice in change: Civil societies, 

Lawyers and Judges. A new project for the Administration 

of Courts 

It is a project aiming at promoting the 

modernization of courts  through the diffusion of positive 

experiences undertaken in the US and the US judicial 

system With a broad 

participation of judges, court personnel, 

political and academic actors, businessmen  

US Embassy in Argentina. 

Ministry of Justice through the 

Comprehensive Program of Judicial 

Reform US Embassy, 

Fundación Libra, Judicial Council and 

ARGENJUS. 

              www.reformajudicial.jus.gov.ar  

28

and citizens Casas de Justicia  Its goal is to design an 

effective model for the Access to justice  in different provinces, with coordinated activities of local judiciaries, local 

executives and NGOs  

PROJUM remnants  resources 

Local governments, Ministry of Justice  and 

NGOs. 

 

   Source: CEJA.   Table 2   

Tabla 30 Internal Projects 

Project name 

Descripction       Executive Organism 

 References   

Technical Cooperation Covenant 

between the National Supreme Court and ARGENJUSS 

The general goal is to improve the National Judiciary through three 

central objectives: (a) the efficiency of the courts  (b) the transparency in the judicial service and  (c) the access 

to justice. 

ARGENJUS ‐National Supreme Court 

http://www.csjn.gov.ar/convenio/convenio.html 

 

Covenant for a new 

Information system  for 

the Argentina Judicial System. 

The goal consists in the creation  of a new system of  information and 

judicial statistics  common for all the government offices. 

Ministry of Justice and JUFEJUS 

www.reformajudicial.jus.gov.ar 

Covenant of Inter‐

jurisdictional electronic 

communication 

The goal is to homogenize the  domain names and e‐mail addresses of all the judicial system. According 

to Statute  22.172 

Ministry of Justice and JUFEJUS 

www.reformajudicial.jus.gov.ar 

  Source: CEJA11 

It is important to remark that parallel to the PROJUM some other programs were launched, being the

most important of them the Comprehensive Reform Program of the Ministry of Justice, whose web

site, www.reformajudicial.jus.gov.ar, seems to have been abandoned.

The aforementioned programs are only some programs undertaken with the intervention of

governmental agencies and do not comprise the large amount of initiatives carried out by NGOs and

                                                            11http://www.cejamericas.org/reporte/muestra_pais.php?idioma=espanol&pais=ARGENTIN&tipreport=REPORTE

2&seccion=PROYREFO Consulted 14th August 2008.

29

private organizations. Each organization, on their own or by means of the cooperation of NGOs or

internal or external agencies, develops its own programs, which shows an increasing movement

pushing for judicial reform.

Another important initiative in Judicial reform in the last decades was La Mesa del Diálogo

Argentina, a broad representative forum formed to mitigate the disastrous effects of the 2001crisis.

The Mesa de Diálogo Argentino - and its “Mesa Permanente para la Reforma de la Justicia del

Diálogo Argentino” - was a Catholic Church initiative with the support of UNDP and the government

(Riggirozzi, 2006). It was a forum with wide representation of social sectors in order to contribute to

overcome the crisis through the elaboration of proposals for economic and institutional reforms

(Riggirozzi, 2006). Five main commissions were created to promote judicial reforms, namely: Access

to Justice, ADR Mechanisms, Judicial trainings, judicial backlogs and judicial delays reduction and

judges profile (Garavano et al, 2003). NGO delegates, policy makers, magistrates and judicial

representatives participated in the commissions. Several projects were proposed and some of them

effectively implemented.

As I showed, some local programs fostering judicial reform had been launched before and

after the PROJUM. Before or simultaneously with the PROJUM the most important of them was the

Comprehensive Judicial Reform Program (Programa Integral de Reforma Judicial) by the Ministry of

Justice and Human Rights .

The PROJUM focused its reform program on the managerial aspects of judicial reform and to

some extent took position for one of the reform streams existing in Argentina. This position taken by

the World Bank was one of the most important obstacles the PROJUM had to face during its

implementation. The struggles among the actors involved made the project be in serious risk as it will

be introduced in the following sections.

PART III

THE PROJUM

3.1 World Bank Court Development Project (PROJUM) as a case study

30

In this scenario the World Bank and Argentina launched the PROJUM -Model Court Development

Program12(World Bank 2006), the first and most important of the WB judicial reform initiatives in

Argentina. This was a 5-million dollar loan qualified as LIL (Learning and Innovation Loan) granted

to the Argentine Government. This Loan agreement was decided between the International Bank for

Reconstruction and Development (World Bank) and the Argentine Republic (as borrower) and its

general goals were “to identify and establish conditions in Argentina under which judicial

administrative improvements could take place and eventually form part of a broader reform program.

These goals were to be approached through an examination of some of the judiciary´s systemic

problems and experimentation of new methodologies for possible uses as models.”(World Bank, 2006)

This Loan Program -named PROJUM in Argentina- was launched during the last years of

the government of the Argentine President Carlos S. Menem and the loan contract was also signed

by his Minister of Economy Roque Fernandez. This program was an integral part of the

Modernization process undertaken in all the Argentinian State by Menem´s Administration. It focused

on the judiciary under the framework of the Washington Consensus with its commitments of

deregulation, privatization and modernization, which was applied as a government policy in

Argentina during the 1990s.

The modernization process had been widely resisted politically, and a similar resistance had to

be faced by the programme, which therefore also became controversial and resisted by important

actors. The World Bank participation in governance projects in Argentina was not circumscribed

only to the judicial sector , since several other governance programs were launched during the

1990s, in which the modernization of the State was the general reform framework (see the programs

of the World Bank13).

In this order of ideas the PROJUM has become a program which attempted to modernize the

administrative realm of the Judiciary, through four components which were Court Management,                                                             

12http://web.worldbank.org/external/projects/main?Projectid=P050713&Type=Implementation&theSitePK=40941&pagePK=64330676&menuPK=64282137&piPK=64302789- 24th February 2008. Even though this project is not the only one it is the first attempt to produce effective reforms in the judiciary at national level. The previous programs were directed to produce a judicial sector assessment but not to implement and produce effective judicial changes in court administration as in the PROJUM .

13 http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/main?pagePK=64187835&piPK=64187936&theSitePK=523679&menuPK=64187283&query=judicial%20argentina&fromDate=&docType=0&toDate=&IRISF=&displayOrder=DOCNA,DOCDT,REPNB,DOCTY&callBack=&siteName=WDS&sType=2&report=&loan=&trustfund=&projid=&credit=&sourceCitation=&sortDesc=DOCDT&dAtts=DOCDT,DOCNA,DOCTY,SECCL,LANG,REPNB,VOLNB,REPNME&startPoint=0&pageSize=50

31

Judicial Administration, Case Backlog Reduction, Skills development of the judges and their staffs and

evaluation and dissemination of the program and its results among the judiciary actors and the public

in general (World Bank 2006).

The PROJUM aimed to redesign 12 courts throughout the country at the National level, also

known as Federal Courts in the Provinces, incorporating new technologies, new working methods and

a document management system (World Bank 1998 and 2001). Twelve courts were selected: 10 civil,

commercial and social security courts from Capital Federal, and two federal courts from Chaco and

Mar del Plata. . The courts were:

Table 3

THE COURTS OF THE PROJUM

Federal and National Courts in the City of Buenos Aires 

Two multi‐jurisdictional Federal Courts in the Provinces14 

  

Four National Civil15 Courts of first instance in the city of Buenos Aires:   

1° Instancia en lo Civil Nº 46,  Nº 74,  Nº 78 and N°100. 

 

Federal Civil y Comercial  Nº 2 in   Mar del Plata  Provincia Buenos Aires  

 Three National Commercial Courts of first 

instance in the city of Buenos Aires: 1° Instancia en lo Comercial N° 5, Nº 1 and  

Nº 15  

Federal Court in Resistencia  Provincia  Chaco. 

                                                            14 Federal Courts (in the Provinces despite some of them can also be found in the city of Buenos Aires) or the

National Courts (in the city of Buenos Aires) are courts which belong to the National Government differentiated from the Provincial Courts with jurisdiction in the Provinces. This has been so since the Federal System of Government imposed by the National Constitution in 1853 established a National Government (with the traditional division of branches between the Executive, the Parliament and the Judiciary) and also Provincial Governments( also divided in Executive, Parliamentary and Judicial branches). Consequently in the Provinces Federal Courts and Provincial Courts coexist with similar substantial competences. In the city of Buenos Aires The National Courts possess a wide jurisdiction and are differentiated because of their substantial competences in Civil Courts, Criminal Courts, Commercial Courts, Administrative Courts, Labour Courts, etc. The Federal Courts in the Provinces exert their jurisdiction in very specific matters beyond the local Provincial Courts’ competences and are in charge of Criminal , Civil, Commercial, and Tax cases among others. This causes Federal Courts in the Provinces to have a wide array of residual competences.  

15 The fieldwork here conducted was on PROJUM Civil Courts N°74, 46 and 78 and non PROJUM Civil Court N° 76.

32

 Three Federal Social Security Courts of first 

instance in the city of Buenos Aires: Federal de la Seguridad Social Nº 1,  Nº 8 and 

Nº 9  

The initial steps of the PROJUM are properly summarized by the WB as follows:

“Once the respective Chambers (civil, commercial and social security) selected the courts that would implement the New Management Model, the judges were invited to participate in a series of courses and workshops to receive training for the main task that the implementation of the Project required, which was the global design of the Management Model. The design was performed by specialists hired by the UCP and after the approval by the judges involved, a bid was called to contract a firm that would implement the design with support of a computerized system.[….] From 1998 to 2002, UCP did not have a plausible performance. Because of that, the authorities of the Bank proposed the transfer of the UCP to the Consejo de la Magistratura, where the continuity or cancellation of the Project was debated. Finally, the continuity was decided. However, this transfer coincided with the election of new counselors and the subsequent change of authorities within the Consejo. In such conditions, in November 2002 the Project was given a different direction in order to achieve not only concrete goals but also its implementation, even given the insufficient deadlines, product of previous and consecutive delays. The necessary bids were called for the different acquisitions and contract of the firm that would develop the software. Staff was reduced and outcomes were soon observed.” (World Bank 2006:19)

PROJUM Times: The program was scheduled to begin on 20th January 1999 but its effective start was

on 29th April 1999. The successive stages faced long delays: the scheduled closing date was to be on

30th November 2001 when the program had not yet begun with the implementation stage. The

effective closing date was on 30th September 2005 four years after the programmed date of closing.

3.2 Description of the PROJUM

As stated, the PROJUM had to overcome several obstacles during its implementation. The most

important one was the delay in the launch of the program, which undermined the whole process of

implementation and affected seriously the chances of the PROJUM to achieve positive results.

The PROJUM had several PCUs during its life. In November 2002 the last PCU was

appointed to conclude with the PROJUM Implementation stage.The administrative scheme created for

the PROJUM had the following units:

Figure N° 1

33

Table 4- Executive Committee

Executive Committee

Administrador General de la Corte Suprema de Justicia de la Nación 

(General Administrator of the National Supreme Court of Justice) 

Secretaría  de Política Judicial y Asuntos Legislativos del Ministerio de Justicia, Seguridad y 

Derechos Humanos   (Secretary of Judicial Policy and Legislative Affairs of the Ministry of Justice, Security  and Human 

Rights) Subsecretario  de Coordinación y Evaluación Presupuestaria de la Jefatura de Gabinetes de 

Ministros;  (Sub‐Secretary of Coordination  and Budget Evaluation of the Headquarters of Ministry 

Cabinets) 

One  representative  from  the Consejo de la Magistratura  

(Judicial Council) 

Even though the above administrative scheme was permanent, the people affected to those offices

were often changed during its initial stage. An initial delay had affected seriously all the project, due

to which one of the interviewees (Simari interview N° 11) affirmed that not all the blame should be

laid on the government, since the WB also imposed its own time schedules. The initial delay was

caused rather by policy decisions than by inefficiencies.

The PROJUM was developed along three consecutive steps:

Table 5 – The stages of the PROJUM

 The  initial evaluative step in order to design the best tools to be 

implemented (while the project administration was under the control of the Ministry of 

Justice)  

 The implementation process conducted by UTE DDS UNITECH 

(under the control of the Judicial Council)   The evaluation process of the outcomes conducted by FORES‐NCSC 

 

1-The initial evaluative step was undertaken by individual consultants who worked on the 12

courts where the PROJUM was to be implemented. They developed interviews to judges and judiciary

34

staff, organized workshops, evaluated the layout, observed the fieldwork, gave recommendations and

elaborated a wide diagnostic with different possibilities to be implemented. The diagnostic embraced

all the compounds of the PROJUM, mainly the organizational, documentary and computerized system

diagnostics. (Colegio Público de Abogados de la Capital Federal, 2001).

During this stage the “digitalized file” (expediente digitalizado) was still considered as an

option, which was later abandoned. This was so because the “digitalized file” required changes in the

Civil Procedure Code which exceeded the practical chances of PROJUM implementers. Justice

Portela (interview N° 2) expressed that the PROJUM did not succeed because the real need for an

improvement in case management and court administration was the implementation of the digitalized

file in which all the notifications could be done without using paper-based documents.

2- Implementation process: Ing. Moises Lichtmajer (interview N° 7) was the consultant (with

management and administration expertise) chosen from a triad of consultants proposed by the

government to the WB in order to lead the UCP in the implementation stage of the PROJUM . The

work of implementation was initiated in November 2002 and concluded in June 2005.

The initial goals of he PROJUM as stated in the Contract Appraisal document (World Bank,

1998) were:

“A. The number of cases pending will decrease by 15% every year B. Clearance rate will increase by 20% every year'

C. Duration of a typical case, juicio executivo (from filing until the decision stage and then from the decision until the enforcement stage) will decrease D. Increase of percentage of judgments written with information technology as a proxy for the use of modern technology E. Increase in trust in the judiciary and satisfaction by the public in the service provided by the judiciary F. Index of management performance based upon a self-audit.”(World Bank, 1998)

One of the most important issues of the PROJUM was to implement a model with a clear division

between jurisdictional functions and administrative functions of the court. The new management

model was developed around this organizational concept. Some of the motives behind this distinction

were to alleviate the judges’ labor in administrative matters in order that they could dedicate

themselves exclusively to jurisdictional decisions.

35

In order to achieve those goals, a new model of court administration- New Management

Model (Nuevo modelo de gestión16) was developed , elaborated by the judges and the staff of the

courts, with the assistance of the permanent consultants of the UCP. Once approved this “Global

Design”, UTE DDS UNITECH (the bid winner for the program implementation) began as external

consultant in order to implement the program, to develop a managerial structure according to the “new

management model” of court administration (Nuevo modelo de gestión), elaborated by the

judges(with the assistance of the previous consultant) and to provide a new computerized system to

the PROJUM courts. UTE DDS UNITECH began the work on 1st April 2003. The consultant

specialized in software systems updated the previous diagnostics, enriched the design and began with

the training program in organizational matters for judges and staff. On 8th March 2004 the

implementation of the New Model began jointly with the new computerized system named IURIX

.(Lichtmajer interview N° 7)

The task was complemented with a wide range of activities and reforms ranging from:

“Diagnostic of the court situation at the program start; Global design of the new model of court

administration(the new management model); Standardization of the judicial documents.; Key

performance indicators; New system of files archieving (vertical instead of horizontal); Proposal to

universalize the use of Paper A4 (international standard); The design of an adequate layout for the

work in the judicial office” (Lichtmajer, 2005:3)

One of the most important matters for the judges and court staff was the modernization of the

court furniture and the hardware provided by the PROJUM. A building reform was also made, and the

change of the furniture of the courts was undertaken jointly with the provision of computers. Dr.

Casas17 (interview N° 1) affirmed they (the court as a whole) had accepted to be part of the program

because in his Court they did not have computers. The only computers they had, had been provided

either by the judge himself or by the staff with private resources.

The excessive insistence on the computerization of the courts provoked claims from some

stakeholders. They argued that the goal of the program was not only to provide the court with

computers and with proper software. Its broader intention was to produce a wider mentality change in

                                                            16 See Annexes N° 1 and 2. 17 Civil Court N° 74 received the ISO 9002 certification

36

the administration of justice and the case management. Unfortunately, for some scholars (Sandra

Elena interview n° 5) the main point of the PROJUM was to appear merely as a computerized system

and furniture modernization program.

My fieldwork mainly focused on the Civil Courts participants of the Program and one court

from outside the program. My first impression, when visiting the PROJUM courts, was to observe a

new layout , modern and suitable furniture, an orderly space and a remarkably better organization than

the one in the courts outside the program.

3.2.1 Actors and Agents in the PROJUM and the Argentinian Judicial Reform

Concerning all Judicial Reform, in this case the PROJUM, there are diverse actors pursuing their own

interests in the reform. Global actors (Halliday et al, 2006), in this case the World Bank, government

bodies like the Supreme Court, the Executive, the Ministry of Justice, the Judicial Council, the court

judges, consultants and epistemic communities operated jointly or successively, competitively or

cooperatively in the PROJUM, all of them showing their private interests and opinions, exerting

pressure, etc. In the PROJUM the actors involved were:

The Executive and the Supreme Court : They “have strong corporate interests that inhibit

reform” (Riggirozzi, 2006 ) as will be developed further below in Part IV.

The judicial Council: Created by the constitutional reform of 1994. The Judicial Council

began its activities in 1999 and since the Constitution had transferred to the Council the administration

of the National judiciary, problems of competence with the Supreme Court and its delegates in the

Project – the Ministry of Justice and Human rights- interfered and hindered the normal development

of PROJUM (World Bank, 2006) . Under the Judicial Council, the PROJUM was implemented,

concluded and evaluated. However, implementing the Program was not easy. For the completion of

the PROJUM, the Judicial Council also faced several internal problems. After being in the Ministry of

Justice for some years, without results and having disbursed approximately one million and a half US

dollars, some of the Councilors posed resistance to the continuity of the Program. Beyond the fact that

there had been accusations of corruption, Councilor Szmukler 18 opposed the continuity of the

                                                            18 See the Website: http://www.consejero-szmukler.com.ar/ (04-09-2008)

37

PROJUM arguing that this program, like others in Latin America and The Caribbean, aims at

installing a hybrid justice model, “rational and efficient” useful only for the IFIs to recover their

credits in developing countries. The World Bank representative, Dr. Yung Tung was present in a

Council meeting trying to instruct the councilors about their responsibility in justice administration,

and Councilor Szmukler warned him about the WB responsibilities in the chaotic socio-economic

situation of the country and the continent. Szmulkler also emphasized the high costs of the program

and the poor results, the lack of a planned and detailed budget for its replication in all the judiciary,

and the chaotic socio-economic situation of the country at the moment.

Even though the implementation of the program was wholly completed, the Judicial Council

decided not to replicate the PROJUM in other courts, as had been requested by some magistrates, and

in March 2008, by means of the Resolution N°98/08 also decided not to replicate the software IURIX

acquired by the PROJUM in order to elaborate its own software.

The PROJUM judges and Court Staff: They played a very important role in all the PROJUM

implementation process. Their range of commitment varied and the engagement with the Program

goals was also diverse. Some of the actors showed an enthusiastic attitude but some others were

overloaded with work by the implementation exigencies, the training courses and workshops. Even

though their entrance into the program was voluntary, at least regarding the civil courts, the work

burden that the PROJUM entailed (without economic incentives and scarce personnel) affected their

compromise and commitment with the project. (Simari, interview N° 11). The judges created,

assisted by the consultants, the new management model to be implemented in the PROJUM courts.

They also supported the continuity of the program even after the assistance of the PROJUM had

been finalized.

“A technocratic group within the Ministry of Justice”(Riggirozzi,2006): In 1998 the

Ministry of Justice and Human Rights launched a Comprehensive National Program for Judicial

Reform. Meanwhile, the Executive and the WB were planning to launch the PROJUM initially under

the control of the Supreme Court (later the control was delegated to the Ministry of Justice).To a

great extent, this lack of coordination was a source of frictions among policy makers, researchers and

the PROJUM administration. This was mainly because in those days some researchers, coming from

38

civil societies and NGOs specialized in judicial reform, had launched the aforementioned reform

program for the judiciary. Furthermore,

“some representatives of think-tanks like FORES move[d] from the realm of policy-oriented analysis to occupy civil servant positions within the Ministry of Justice during the years of Menem's administration and subsequent administration of De la Rúa”(Riggirozzi, 2006:54).

Garavano (interview N° 6) said that while the program was under the Ministry of Justice there were

some other programs such as the digitalization of signatures, and others supported by Mesa de

Diálogo, which lacked financial resources for their implementation. This generated resistance from

many actors who saw how their reform efforts vanished due to the WB program, since local reformers

had practically no participation in it.

Consultants: The PROJUM was developed principally by external consultants, which raised

rejection and complaints from the judiciary and “local knowledge producers” due to this non-

participative external intervention.

“Two main factors are identified as affecting the context in which local knowledge producers interact with local policy-makers[…….] The first relates to the fact that donors, like national stakeholders, often push their own agendas and therefore compete with local contending paradigms on how to approach reform programmes. Global knowledge carried put forth by external consultants versus local knowledge cannot only inhibit joint efforts but also duplicate existing work[……] The second factor relates directly to World Bank consultants. It has been claimed that World Bank consultants sometimes have little or no country experience, and that their aim is to replicate a World Bank's blueprint to solve problems in the judicial sector (Brenna 2003: interview). Moreover, by supporting certain actors the World Bank enhances certain policy ideas and proposals and their political influence. Bank staff can improve the environment for reform by engaging with local consultants in networking activities and enhancing the support and capacity to lead the reform. If Bank managers follow a top-down strategy implementation of the reform will be hampered and thus the gap between global and local knowledge (and between differing local approaches and agendas) will not be bridged.” (Riggirozzi, 2006:54-55)

Lichtmajer (interview N° 7) alluded to the resistance he had to overcome to succeed in concluding the

program. The resistance came principally from ideological bias about foreign aid programs put in

evidence in the Council deliberations and also from the judiciary conservative character evidenced in

the lack of commitment of some judges. Lichtmajer stressed the deep effort which the program

implementation entailed in an antagonistic environment since at the moment he had been appointed,

the program had been close to failure.

 Epistemic Communities: The existence of four mainstreams in the Academia about Judicial

Reform is stressed by Binder(2006) as it was quoted above. Riggirozzi (2006) points out the existence

of two main currents or “communities of thought” : a) Think-tanks and business-oriented

organizations and 2) Non-Governmental Advocacy Organizations. Their intervention in judicial

39

matters and judicial research has been constantly increasing during the last two decades invigorated

by the proliferation of NGOs and civil society organizations .

Think Tanks

Table 6

Think tanks and business oriented organizations   Very  influential  before  the  2001  socio  economic  crisis.  Their  research  is  focused  mainly  on  case management19   and judicial administration and they have often acted as government and   WB consultants. Their participation  in the PROJUM was scarce and limited to the initial stages.  (Riggirozzi, 2006)    Some of them acting in Argentina Judicial reform are, namely: 

 

 FORES 

Forum for the Study of Justice and Administration (Foro de Estudios sobre Administración y Justicia) 

 An NGO  specialized in Judicial  Reform which carried out the evaluation of PROJUM outcomes. “Some of its members were appointed to positions of political 

responsibility within the Ministry of Justice” (Riggirozzi, 2006:50) 

 Fundación Libra 

 An “NGO that works closely with the Ministry of Justice in the production  of research related to Alternative Dispute Resolution, as well as training 

judiciary personnel” (Riggirozzi, 2006:51) . One of its founders was Elena Highton, now National Supreme 

Court Justice. 

 Fundación de Investigación Económica 

Latinoamericana‐ FIEL  

A “key think‐tank involved in policy‐oriented research and analysis on issues of judicial 

reform”.(Riggirozi,  2006:51) 

Instituto para el Desarrollo Empresario en la Argentina‐ IDEA: 

 A “non‐governmental institution whose members 

are some of the most important corporate executive officers of the country.” (Riggirozzi, 2006:51) 

 Junta Federal de Cortes y Superiores Tribunales de Justicia de las Provincias Argentinas‐ JUFEJUS: 

 A “federal entity  that gathers members of Supreme Courts of Justice at the provincial level” (Riggirozzi,  

2006:51) 

    ARGENJUS: 

  A “consortium formed by representatives of NGOs, 

think tanks, experts and consultants, and educational institutions[…] that work on the justice 

system.”(Riggirozzi, 2006:51). 

                                                            19 The Ministry of Justice and Human Rights elaborated an Integral Plan for judicial reform and this plan, based

on case management, was created by former and current members of local think tanks. For more details about the plan you could see until some weeks ago the Ministry of Justice web site: www.reformajudicial.jus.gov.ar. (not available on 4th. August 2008) Indeed, that website was very useful at the initial stages of this research. At the moment that website seems to have been abandoned the same as some years ago the Plan Integral de Reforma Judicial had been abandoned and whose chief head was Dr. Germán Garavano . However, the information provided in that website was not updated. JSCA( CEJA in Spanish) website provides the following information about the website of the Programa Integral de Reforma Judicial de Argentina (Comprehensive Program for Judicial Reform in Argentina): “ This program was created in July 2000 by the Secretary of Justice  and Legislative Affairs of the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights of Argentina, which established the general outline of the reform process. This excellent website provides up-to-date information on events, publications, statistics and projects, including multiple resources on the aspects and parties involved in judicial reform, such as access to justice, management, infrastructure, administrative reforms, legislative reforms, training, consensus-building activities, and full reports on past events. Also, noteworthy is its user-friendly page design and careful organization of the topics. Available only in Spanish” (CEJA, http://www.cejamericas.org/)

40

Unidos por la Justicia:  Its goal is to promote actions for the improvement of the judicial system and the strengthening of the rule 

of law.  (Riggirozzi, 2006:51). 

Gestión Judicial:  A forum recently created by judges and civil servants who use managerial techniques for the improvement 

of the justice system and where the members exchange suggestions and expertise. Even though 

this forum is new and does not follow judicial reform directly, it is relevant to show how some judges have organized themselves in order to promote the use of managerial tools for the improvement of Justice. 

Non Governmental Advocacy Organizations

Table 7

 Non Governmental Advocacy Organizations 

 They are civil societies,  which follow the judicial reform but from a standpoint  different from  think tanks. They are advocacy NGOs with a more political approach,  focusing mainly on the independence of justice, access to justice, protection of  human rights, anticorruption, etc. . Their influence in judicial reform policies 

in Argentina became more relevant after the 2001 crisis (Riggirozzi , 2006). Among them can be cited:  

 Civil Rights Association (Asociación por los 

Derechos Civiles‐ ADC20)  

It promotes civil rights recognition and enforcement as the right to access to information. 

(Riggirozzi, 2006:53) 

 Center of Legal and Social Studies (Centro de Estudios 

Legales y Sociales‐ CELS21)  

An “NGO that focuses on human rights advocacy” (Riggirozzi, 2006:53) 

 Environment and Natural Resources Foundation 

(Fundación Ambiente y RecursosNaturales‐ FARN22) 

 An NGO “promoting sustainable development through policy, law and institutional reform” 

(Riggirozzi, 2006:53) 

 Institute of Comparative Studies in Criminal and 

Social Sciences (Instituto de Estudios Comparados en Ciencias Penales y Sociales‐ INECIP23) (Riggirozzi, 

2006:53) 

  Fundación Poder Ciudadano24 

 “the Argentine Chapter of International 

Transparency, have pioneered groundbreaking anti‐corruption initiatives, pro bono law services and public access initiatives and participated in 

drafting the rules of the public hearing” (Riggirozzi, 2006:52) 

Users and Consumers Union (Unión de Usuarios y Consumidores 

 A “civil organization which offers legal protection for 

consumers and user”. (Riggirozzi, 2006:53) 

International Agencies operating in Judicial Reform Table 8

                                                            20 http://www.adc.org.ar (08-04-2008)

21 http://www.cels.org.ar (08-04-2008) 22 http://www.farn.org.ar/ (08-04-2008) 23 http://www.inecip.org/ (08-04-2008) 24 http://www.poderciudadano.org (08-04-2008)

41

CEJA‐ JSCA25(Centro de Estudios de Justicia de las Américas‐ Justice Studies Center of the Americas):  This is an international agency   created in 1999 by the members of the Inter‐American System. Its members are the active member states of the 

Organization of American States.  The main goal of the agency is to give  support to the countries in their reform processes. The information available in the JSCA web site is a very important source for 

research and cooperation. 

 Cumbre Judicial Iberoamericana 26 Iberian  American Judicial Summit 

  The higher judicial  level representation of Latin 

American countries also including Andorra, Spain and Portugal. 

Bar Associations and Judicial Associations

Table 9

 Colegio Público de Abogados de Capital 

Federal(CPACF):  The Lawyer Bar Association  also showed interest in the PROJUM by publishing an extensive article 

(CAPCF, 2001,  Fascículo N° 14)  detailing  the initial diagnostic stage of  the PROJUM in  January 2001. This publication was part of the scheduled goals of the PROJUM in the diffusion compound of the program among court  users. The CPACF also 

decided to conduct a survey among the lawyers in 200727 whose results, if conducted, were not 

available. 

  

   

Colegio de Abogados de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires  (ARGENJUS member) 

Federación Argentina de Magistrados (FAM)  (ARGENJUS member) 

Federación Argentina de Colegios de Abogados(FACA)(ARGENJUS member) 

Asociación de Magistrados y Funcionarios Judiciales de la Nación  (ARGENJUS member) 

World Bank Units: The important role of the WB in the PROJUM was related above. WB units

were operating in Argentina during the PROJUM times. As some interviewees stressed, the WB was

also responsible for the initial delay at the start of the program (Simari; interview N°11 ). Lichtmajer

(interview N°7 ) expressed that during the period in which he had been Executive Director of the

PROJUM, the WB had carried out several supervision missions with positive results. However during

the PROJUM times WB visibility in the project was scarce and its influential presence was practically

not perceived by the public according to the low profile sometimes exerted by the WB in this type of

programs.                                                             

25 http://www.cejamericas.org/ (08-04-2008) 26 http://www.cumbrejudicial.org/eversuite/GetRecords?Template=default&app=cumbres (08-24-2008) 27 http://www.cpacf.org.ar/verde/vB_RevAbo/revistas/evista69-06.htm (08-04-2008)  

42

Journalists: They had a peripheral influence on the PROJUM. Even though the media covered

sometimes the PROJUM, only specialized and judicial media covered it mainly when corruption

allegations raised against the initial stages of the PROJUM. Only the internet media Diario Judicial28

covered the PROJUM on some occasions.

Judicial-Unions: They had neither participation nor influence over the program. Like many other

actors involved, they complained about the PROJUM profile. They criticized WB programs since they

only facilitate the operation of the consultants without participation of local expertise, enlarging the

costs of judicial reform. Giarone (2003) also criticized the WB involvement in local judicial reform

programs. Even though the judicial union had scarce influence over the program, their claims for

better conditions of work were present in the PROJUM. Some employees stressed the lack of

incentives for the workers in the PROJUM, which demanded extra work without extra payment (Bello,

interview N° 4).

3.3 PROJUM EVALUATION

In order to evaluate the PROJUM some questions should be answered: Why were Pilot Courts used?

Why did the WB as donor not intervene in the implementation itself of the program? Why was the

program developed by external agents, consultants? To what extent was the local expertise consulted

previously to the Program launch? Why was the money of a fixed sum of 5 million US dollars

invested? Who were the competing actors around the PROJUM? To what extent did these

antagonisms and contesting opinions limit the effectiveness of the program? What was the real impact

of the PROJUM? What are its real outcomes? Who were the stakeholders involved in the PROJUM

outside the judges and personal staff?

The PROJUM, as said, entailed the usage of Pilot Courts as a first-step method to achieve an

overall improvement of the judicial administration. The demanding issues of independence of justice,

corruption, and social justice had been avoided since the beginning of the project.

The reformist atmosphere prevalent in Argentina concomitantly to the PROJUM initiation had

already provoked other reform initiatives. For instance, during the 1990s an unimaginable movement

                                                              28 http://www.diariojudicial.com.ar/nota.asp?IDNoticia=2571 (08-04-2008)

43

for ADR mechanisms had already been present with an enormous promotion, a process which

ultimately led to the incorporation of mediation as a compulsory mechanism in the Procedural Codes

at National and at Provincial levels and placed Argentina in an international leading role in ADR.

(Dezalay et al, 2002:242-245)

Even though some questions have already been answered or advanced previously, for the

evaluation task this section is separated into some subsections: The PROJUM as a Pilot Court Model

program; The PROJUM and the World Bank assessment; the evaluation of the PROJUM through

organizational techniques.

3.3.1 THE PROJUM AS A PILOT COURT MODEL PROGRAM

The Pilots are a methodology used by the WB and other reforming institutions in order to make

reforms in the judiciaries world wide. The reasons which sustains this option are the impossibility or

the difficulties to implement serious and effective comprehensive reforms29 in some countries where

comprehensive reforms could be stopped by contesting opinions and by political struggles, requiring

legislative changes beyond the donor´s possibilities with uncertain results and the waste of resources.

In the early 1990s Argentina required assistance to the WB for reforming the judiciary.

“It was agreed that, even though piecemeal studies had been conducted in the past, it would be beneficial to undertake a comprehensive review of the judicial sector with analysis of the problems and suggestions for change so as to facilitate dialogue and consensus building. Consequently, a Judicial Sector Study completed in 1995 under an IDF grant was carried out. The study brought together a team of local and international experts to review Argentina's justice system. The results were disseminated and discussed during workshops with stakeholders -including the judiciary, bar associations, the business community, NGOs, academia, and the general public.” (World Bank, 2001:82)

Aftermath Argentina government requested more assistance for judicial reform and because of the

lack of consensus among stakeholders or key actors in the judicial reform “on the nature, scope, or

timing of any more substantive reform of the system” the decision was to proceed with the reform

through Pilots”. (World Bank, 2001:82)

This is one of the most problematic aspects of the PROJUM: the absence of a previous

consensus among the stakeholders.

There seems to be a contradiction between two WB arguments: on the one hand, that the lack

of consensus for an overall reform justified the use of pilot models and, on the other hand, the                                                             

29 In Salvador a comprehensive attempt by the USAID failed. (Salas, 2001)

44

permanently stressed requirement of “ownership” which was not taken into account. The

contradiction could be explained by the urgency of the then Argentinean Government to obtain public

results in the judiciary reform and to appear as a reformist though, in fact, the intention was to build a

façade as a reformist to temperate the serious allegations of manipulation of the judiciary exerted by

the opposition and the majority of the population.

However, the WB position is well represented by Dakolias and Said (1999) when they argue

that an overall reform should not be attempted at one stage. The reform process “requires both

cultural change and a systematic change in the delivery of justice, so countries need to institute the

reform process in a program of stages”.

Undoubtedly, the pilot models are a way to face the reform as a first step for an overall and

comprehensive reform. This is one of the essential points of the PROJUM: the reform attempted

through 12 pilot courts was with the purpose of it being replicated. The replication of the program

was one of the most important goals when the program was launched. Nevertheless, the PROJUM

will not be replicated in Argentina in the near future. The Judicial Council decided not to do so

despite some Judges’ petitions in that respect. Dr. Poclava Lafuente, President of the Camara Federal

de la Seguridad Social, and Dr. Luis Otero, President of the Camara Nacional de Apelaciones en lo

Contencioso Administrativo requested the replication of the Program in their courts of first instance in

2005 when the PROJUM was showing visible changes in the Courts benefited with the program

(Diario Judicial30). Dr. Poclava Lafuente (interview N° 10) argued that he had requested the

replication because “they had observed the positive changes produced in the PROJUM courts but,

although the program initially seemed to be very good, later on many “technical” problems had

appeared and everything had to be abandoned. It seems that the system was not vey good. It was a

failed experiment”. Nonetheless, the decision not to replicate the PROJUM was not uncontested.

There are also many stakeholders who still think the PROJUM should be replicated and an initial

recommendation of the Comisión de Administración y Financiera of the Judicial Council advised to

implement the replication of the PROJUM. Virginia Simari(interview N° 11), former Executive

Director of the PROJUM and now Judge, also stressed the benefits achieved by this program for the

                                                            30 See Diario Judicial at: http://www.diariojudicial.com/nota.asp?IDNoticia=26255 (04-09-2008)

45

improvement of the administration of justice and the ability of the PROJUM to install the judicial

reform in the key actors’ agenda.

In spite of the contesting opinions, the replication of the program is now a closed matter. The

Judicial Council decided not to replicate it in other courts; furthermore, it decided not to use the

software -IURIX- developed by the PROJUM (Resolución N° 94/08)31

In order to assess the PROJUM impact, it is relevant to point out that, at the beginning of the

current year, the Poder Judicicial de la Nación (Judicial Council and the Supreme Court) launched

two programs with the goal to reform the Judiciary32: The Plan de Gestión (Management Plan) and

the Proyecto Informático (Informatic Project). The Plan de Gestión establishes a set of instructions for

the different types of courts (for some scholars it does not constitute an administration of justice

reform program, they are only simple instructions insufficient to produce an important reform). The

Proyecto Informático is currently attempting to create specific software tools to be globally used by all

national courts.

3.3.2 THE PROJUM AND THE WORLD BANK ASSESSMENT

Overall assessment of the Project Implementation by the world Bank: The WB in its web site

presentation page of the PROJUM expresses:

“The Argentina Model Court Development Project had an unsatisfactory outcome, is unlikely to be sustainable, and has a modest institutional development impact. Bank performance and borrower performance are unsatisfactory. Among the lessons cited were: (a) In such difficult sector circumstances, the lack of an adequate risk analysis with careful assessment of the borrower's implementation capacity and commitment to reform was particularly costly. (b) The Project should not have been started when the judiciary's governance structure may have been undergoing a substantial change. Neither should the Bank have persisted in pushing a project when there was lack of commitment from the authorities responsible for its execution. (c) In the light of the two aforementioned points, the key prerequisites for future Bank-supported judicial activity in Argentina should include (1) a clear project concept and design; (2) a strong understanding by the judicial authorities of the project's concept and objectives; (3) the assurance of adequate independence for the judiciary for the task; (4) assurance of adequate "ownership" of the proposed design and work plan; (5) provisions for building project execution capabilities in the courts; (6) a realistic time frame; and (7) selection of a good lending instrument. (d) The design and supervision of computerized systems intended for integrated management improvements need to be closely monitored.”33(World Bank website)

                                                            31 http://www.pjn.gov.ar/Publicaciones/00010/00020577.Pdf (09-15-2008) 32 Both projects are available at: http://www.pjn.gov.ar/Publicaciones/fijo/Plan%20de%20Gestion%20Judicial.pdf (04-09-2008) http://www.pjn.gov.ar/Publicaciones/fijo/Plan%20Informatizacion%20judicial.pdf (04-09-2008)

33 http://www-

wds.worldbank.org/external/default/main?pagePK=64193027&piPK=64187937&theSitePK=523679&menuPK=64187510&searchMenuPK=64187283&theSitePK=523679&entityID=000112742_20060724121459&searchMenuPK=64187283&theSitePK=523679 (02-24-2008)

46

However as the World Bank itself recognizes:

“ a full [and complete] assessment of the Project's achievements and outcome is hindered by the limited number of pilot courts in which the planned changes were fully tested, the relative brevity of their duration, and their evaluation too soon before their results and impact were completely clear. It might be useful, accordingly, to undertake some further analysis of those cases which had the highest level of activity in order to see more definitively what took hold, what remains and what were the more complete effects of the Project's interventions.”(World Bank , 2006: 10; the emphasis is mine)

Even though more studies would be convenient in order to measure the changes operated around the

PROJUM, the decision of not replicating the PROJUM and the general opinion which considers it as a

failure diminish the chances of the program to be continued officially as well as in academic

studies. Nevertheless, as I will show in due course, the PROJUM and its indirect effects have had the

virtue to reinforce judicial administration reform as a central point of the agendas of governmental

and non-governmental organizations.

3.3.3 THE EVALUATION OF THE PROJUM THROUGH ORGANIZATIONAL

TECHNIQUES;

“while it is commonly acknowledged that evaluation is essential to programme development, this lesson has had little apparent impact on judicial reforms. For the quantity of work that has been done, evaluations are remarkably few, and all too often neither widely consulted nor even available. Everyone reads the evaluation of their own project; almost no one reads those of anyone else’s work. This suggests an amazing lack of interest in acquiring information and an incentive system which allows and possibly encourages it, but it is also evident that by intent or mere oversight, evaluations are not easily accessible, even to members of agencies which conducted them. A recent suggestion that major donors share their evaluations is a good sign, but it will be hard to implement if only because they may not know where they have stored them” (Hammergren 2002 quoted by Elena et al, 2007:99).

The evaluation of Judicial Reform programs is an integral part of ROL program evaluations in the

broader field of processes of democratic development measurement. Research efforts have been

focused “on developing rigorous comparative methods, including country case studies, large-scale

quantitative studies, systematized expert interviews, democracy surveys, and specialized comparisons

of areas such as the rule of law”(Sarles, 2007:47). Undoubtedly, the evaluation of democracy

programs entails a new field of study developed in the last decades, which is in constant progress and

accompanies the increasing feature of the larger and larger amount of foreign aid programs.

47

The very concept of evaluation is not uniform and is being shaped under a dynamic contesting

process of knowledge production. Neither is there a unique answer to how to evaluate. (Elena et al,

2007:97). “The methodology for evaluating a programme varies from country to country, programme

to programme, and donor to donor. Sometimes evaluation is an opinion based on expert observation.

At other times it is the analysis of hard data collected through social research methods”. (Elena et al,

2007:97)

“Evaluation has been defined as the system for and objective assessment of an ongoing or completed project, programme or policy, and its design, implementation and results. The aim is to determine how relevant the objectives have been and how far they have been fulfilled, and to assess the efficiency, effectiveness, impact and sustainability of programmes. Evaluation also refers to the process of determining the worth or significance of an activity, policy or programme (Molund and Schill 2004: 106)”.(Burnell, 2007:16 ) “The main reasons for doing evaluations (apart from the fact that it may be legal requirement) are[….]to ensure proper bookkeeping, that is, accountancy-type audits; to serve the aim of achieving efficiency or value for money; to facilitate accountability to the political masters and taxpayers who sanction or authorize democracy support in their name, which is a case that looks incontrovertible for any organization that claims to stand for democratic principles; to enable lessons to be learned from experience and make improved and more effective practice possible; and to offer a form of security against the kind of ill-judged ‘political meddling’ that displaces the formal goals of an organization or takes decisions on operational details away from the hands of able and experienced practitioners.”(Burnell, 2007:16)

Judicial Reform as a part of ROL programs also needs to be evaluated and in this task, as mentioned

before, the techniques to operate the evaluation vary and principally are dependent on the program

objectives.

Even though “ justice has many other dimensions, and judicial reforms often strive for less

quantifiable changes, such as improving the independence of the judiciary and enhancing procedural

transparency” (Buscaglia et al, 1999:2) to measure the “effectiveness” of Courts worldwide, specialists

have elaborated a complex quantitative system of evaluation using Court Performance Indicators.

They can vary from program to program, or from donor to donor so as to be implemented.

According to the PROJUM’ specific objectives some performance indicators were defined:

“(a) annual reductions in the numbers of pending cases and their durations; (b) increases in clearance

rates; (c) increases in the percentages of judgments written with information technology, (d) enhanced

public trust in and satisfaction with the judiciary; and (e) upgraded judicial management

performance.” (World Bank, 2006:3)

FORES and the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) won the bid called for the external

evaluation of the outcomes once the PROJUM had been implemented. The outcomes evaluation

48

process held by FORES and the NCSC was limited to the points of evaluation expressly detailed in the

call for the bid, consequently, the design and the implementation stages were excluded as well as the

software implemented IURIX. Their intervention was restrained to evaluate the results or outcomes of

the program (Sandra Elena interview N° 5). The final report, recently available34, “Proyecto de

Desarrollo de Juzgado Modelo (PROJUM)-Evaluación de los Resultados de la Implantacion del

Modelo de Gestión en los Juzgados Modelo Préstamo BIRF 4314 AR INFORME FINAL” is a very

detailed , thoughtful and complete report evaluating the PROJUM outcomes elaborated by FORES.

It has been designed to provide the necessary tools for the analysis of the data obtained in the

fieldwork developed by FORES with the assistance of consultant specialists. The FORES report,

following the requests from PROJUM authorities, comprises the following points:

a) Evaluation of the Court Performance Indicators;

b) Evaluation of the Range of observance of quality norms;

c) Evaluation of the new organic structure and the new layout;

d) Evaluation of the control exerted over the products provided by the Court users;

e) Evaluation of the software IURIX;

f) Evaluation of the Common Administrative Units;

g) Evaluation of the Court User Groups Perception;

h) Evaluation of the Court personnel´ opinion;

i) Evaluation of the Training Programs;

The items listed above will be analyzed below jointly with the WB - Implementation Completion

Report and with the empirical research I carried out on the PROJUM Courts.

a) Evaluation of the Court Performance Indicators:

“These indicators permit the evaluation of the changes operated in the Court administration after the

implementation of the “New Management Model”. With this purpose, two surveys were compared by

FORES: “ex ante(2003) and ex post(2004), so as to make possible the comparisons and the

conclusions.” (FORES-NCSC, 2005)

                                                            34 This report was granted with confidentiality for two years and during that period it was available neither to the

public nor to the researchers. For its provision after the confidential period expired my sincere thanks to Héctor Chayer and Sandra Elena, specialists from FORES.

49

Only the Civil Courts and Social Security Courts were measured since, ex ante data was missing

for the other Courts, whereas for the Courts measured (Civil and Social Security Courts) the Court

Performance Indicator results were positive as it is shown in figure 2:

Figure 2

Source:FORES- NCSC Report

Notice that ex ante and ex post data were taken in 2003 and 2004 respectively. This brief

period of time weakens the results in order to measure the sustainability of the improvement rates.

Another problem of the data was the exponentially increase of cases during this period due to the

“pesification” of dollar accounts(World Bank, 2006) after the 2001 crisis.

World Bank Report: “The number of pending cases in the civil courts fell by 69 percent and

by 24 percent in the social security courts. This was well above the performance indicator target of 15

percent decreases annually. The courts' clearance rate (the number of cases resolved as percentages of

cases filed that year) in two jurisdictions increased in: (a) the civil courts by 312, 377 and 101

percents, and (b) the social security courts by 58, 45 and 49 percents. These figures exceeded by far

the performance targets of 20 percent annual increases. The duration of typical cases in two

jurisdictions from filing until decision stages, and from there on until enforcement stages fell by 82

percent (four civil courts) and 43 percent (three social security courts).” (World Bank, 2006:8)

Figure 3 shows Court Performance Indicators. They evidenced substantial rate improvements,

but the above mentioned lack of reliability of this data, in order to take relevant conclusions about the

sustainability of the reform, has also been stressed. In figure 3 each goal pursued is contrasted with

the results.

50

Figure 3

Source: World Bank “Implementation Completion Report”

The PROJUM empirical research

My fieldwork in Courts concentrated on in situ observations and interviews held in 3 Civil Courts

of the city of Buenos Aires: National Civil Court N° 74 (three visits), N° 46 (two short interviews with

the judge) and N° 78 (where two agents of justice were interviewed: the Judge´s Private Secretary

and an administrative official). The results of my empirical research will be related following the

analytical frame used by FORES in the evaluation of the PROJUM outcomes.

Dr. Casas (interview N° 1) showed a very positive opinion about the PROJUM results in his

Court. Notice that this court postulated and was awarded with a 9002 ISO quality norms certification

in 2006. For Casas and most of the Court staff ( Survey 1) the PROJUM was very useful for the Court

Administration improvement. As he argued, all the Court Performance indicators improved

significantly in his Court after PROJUM implementation. He also stressed the importance of the Civil

Procedural Code reform of section 360 establishing the Conciliation Audience. The Conciliations

passed from 5 per year to 70 per year. Through the observation in situ of Civil Court N° 74, its

organized feature of the work , the comfortable layout and working atmosphere should be remarked.

Carlos Molina Portela (interview N° 2) said that the PROJUM achievements were not as

positive as for justice Casas and no substantial reform was achieved. However, Portela recognized

51

improvements in organizational features and building adequacy, and also pointed out that the real

improvement of the judicial administration could be achieved only through the digitalization of the

judicial file. It was not possible for the PROJUM to advance in the file digitalization because of the

existence of legal obstacles in the Civil Procedure Code. In order to proceed with the normative

adequacy of the Civil Procedural Code to the “digitalized file”, it would have been necessary to

implement a legislative procedure, which clearly exceeded the possibilities of the PROJUM. Portela

also pointed out that the most significant achievement of the PROJUM was to have changed the public

image of the Court. The Court has now visible building reforms, it has a better organization, new

equipment, therefore, the Court works better and the services provided have improved. Nonetheless,

Dr. Portela’s opinion is contested with the replication chances of the PROJUM. For the interviewee

the real chances of replication had vanished due to the great costs and the long time which its

implementation would imply. In Portela’s opinion, the relation between implementation costs and

results cannot justify an investment of 5 million dollars.

Two interviews were conducted in the National Civil Court N° 78: one to the Judge´s private

secretary Dra. Silvia De Carli, and another to a Court Official Diego A. Bello. While Di Carli stressed

some improvements like the new furniture equipment provided by the PROJUM, a better organization,

new computers, and the new software IURIX, she also emphasized that the reform had not achieved

the goals and that PROJUM had not provoked a substantial and conclusive reform. The lack in human

resources was also pointed out. While an improvement in the backlog rate was stressed by De Carli,

the time disposal of the case had not improved significantly.

Survey to the Court staff: Accordingly to the survey carried out among the staff of Civil Court

N° 74, the employees’ opinion about the PROJUM outcomes was also positive. 50% of the surveyed

staff considered that the case disposal time, the backlog rates and the overall Court administration had

significantly improved and the other 50 % said that the changes had not been so clear but showed

confidence in the reform.

Contrastingly, the employees of the National Civil Court N° 78, showed very disparate

opinions. For 67 % of the employees surveyed the PROJUM had not improved the overall functioning

of the court. For 83 % of them the case disposal time had not diminished and the backlog rate had not

52

improved. The observation in situ also showed that the working atmosphere and organizational

improvements in the layout had not been achieved in Civil Court 78.

b) Evaluation of the Range of observance of quality norms

The evaluation of FORES–NCSC stresses that at the moment of the evaluation the quality

management system had an incipient level of development, because of which it cannot be affirmed

that there exists a quality management system as robust as to assure its sustainability and permit a

constant improvement on a systematic base. The staff training program provided by PROJUM has

been insufficient and the staff has not been trained enough and does not know fundamental aspects of

the quality management systems (FORES-NCSC, 2005).

Although this overall assessment of the Courts involved in the PROJUM made by FORES,

one of the PROJUM courts, National Civil Court N° 74 headed by Judge Juan Casas was awarded

with the quality norms certificate ISO 9002. In the observation of Civil Court 74 the certifications

awarded are visible in “Mesa de Entradas” and in the Judge office. Casas (interview N° 1 ) pointed

out that in order to become a candidate for ISO certificates, he requested authorization from the Civil

Camera of Appeals but not answer was received. As the closing date for applications was expiring,

the Court, consequently, requested the Quality norms ISO 9002 and received the quality certificate.

Casas referred to the tremendous audits they had to be subjected to by the auditor Organism and the

challenging character of the procedure.

Casas (interview N° 1) also stressed that the style of his court management is based on the

training programs received during the PROJUM. He emphasized that the management changes

achieved through the PROJUM were based on the following points:

Table 10

 Civil Court N° 74 ‐  Managerial Techniques Developed through the PROJUM  

Dr Casas (interview N° 1) 

 A  deep change of the mentality (This was also stressed by the other judges and court personnel 

interviewed) .  Rotation of the staff into the court positions  to permit  all the staff to be acquainted with the work in the different dependencies  and to be involved in the Court overall work and results. The change of 

mentality, it was stressed, also requires time for meditation and devotion to the work. 

53

  

Internal Audits:   They regularly conduct internal audits in which all the staff  is audited by the work mates through 

reciprocal audits. Even the judge is audited by the employees.   

Internal atmosphere surveys:  They are conducted in order to improve the communication among the personnel including the judge. 

In order to detect if the communication has  improved. they  have appointed the Management Secretary to be in charge of the communication issues. 

  

The documentation of all the Court movements, meetings, surveys, etc.  

The periodical delivery of internal workshops and courses  to train the Court personnel with examinations and grades, with different levels in accordance with the tasks, functions and positions  

held by the staff. Higher level courses are organized for those appointed to jurisdictional functions  and lower level courses for those in charge of minor responsibilities. 

 

A plan of contingencies:   To be used when the operations are affected as, for example,  by the absence of one employee or 

more. They have elaborated this plan for a wide range of contingencies.  

The creation of  manuals to organize the work and to guide the court activities.  

Unfortunately, the achievements of National Civil Court N° 74 with its high standards of quality and

service is an isolated case, which might be followed by Civil Court N° 100 (Dr. Prada Errecart where

fieldwork was not carried out). Even though my fieldwork concentrated on 3 PROJUM civil courts it

can be affirmed that the other courts do not show the same level of engagement with the reform efforts

for different and maybe justified reasons and arguments. However, the significant improvement

achieved by Civil Court N° 74 cannot be minimized in order to evaluate the reform efforts . If one

court was able to achieve these high results, it means that more efforts should be placed on promoting

the program. In fact, Civil Court N° 74 is often presented as a model court and courses and

conferences are dictated about this model ( Casas interview N° 1). The resources invested cannot be

wasted by abandoning the PROJUM as a failed project and impeding to reproduce the lessons

learned in its implementation. The Management Plan launched in February by the National Judicial

Power evidences the lack of continuity in the support of programs like this and this lack of continuity

is one of the most important obstacles for development. The periodical changes of successive

democratic governments with diverse and sometimes competing ideological standpoints cannot justify

the rejection of the programs and the former policy agendas as well as its human and financial efforts

54

in the realms in which other important issues are at stake. The improvement of the system is crucial

and the tools to be implemented, the same as its goals, can be achieved through several instruments

(Elena et al, 2007) though the goals pursued by some policies should be held or enhanced and

improved instead of being abandoned beyond the ideological or conservative bias that can oppose

resistance.

c) Evaluation of the new organic structure and the new layout.

The new organic structure: In this activity FORES-NCSC observes that the Judge leadership as well

as the establishment of work teams have been in accordance with the new operational structure in

which the division between jurisdictional activities and administrative activities is a central point.

However, not all the courts have implemented this division through the appointment of Secretaries Ad

Hoc. In the courts where this has been implemented, FORES evaluation suggests that it was achieved

an interesting distribution of roles, which strengthens the functional specialization and the operative

capacity of the court (FORES-NCSC, 2005).

The judicial Council had to approve operational norms of exceptions guaranteeing the legal

continuity of the New Organic Structure (FORES-NCSC, 2005).

The new layout: “The building reforms and space adequacy jointly with the new system of

archives were made on the 4 civil courts, the 3 commercial courts and the multi jurisdictional court of

Mar el Plata. None of the aforementioned changes was made in the Court of Resistencia.” (FORES-

NCSC, 2005)

The building renovation improved work team environment, facilitated the personnel

interaction, eased the transmission of directives from the Secretary in a unique act, differentiated the

areas to exert the jurisdictional and administrative functions, etc. Nonetheless, some disadvantages

were pointed out like, for instance, the lack of privacy of the court staff from litigants (FORES-NCSC,

2005).

The New system of archives -vertical instead of horizontal- with a new design for the files

cover provided to the courts with extra free place, facilitated the files manipulation and reduced the

working time. Nevertheless, in the special case of the fiscal files (ejecuciones fiscales) the new cover

is not justified since it multiplies the required space for its storage (FORES-NCSC, 2005).

55

Figure N° 4. New Archive System

Source: World Bank Implementation Completion Report

Empirical Research:

One of the most important matters for the judges and staff of civil courts was the modernization of

the court furniture and the hardware provided by the PROJUM. A renovation on the court building

reform was also made, and the change of the furniture of the courts was undertaken jointly with the

provision of computers. Dr. Casas35 (interview N° 1) affirmed they had accepted (the court as a

whole) to be part of the program because in his Court, the few computers they had, had been

provided either by the judge himself or by the staff with private resources.

The excessive insistence on the computerization of the courts provoked complaints from some

stakeholders. They argued that the goal of the program was not only to provide the court with

computers and with proper software but mainly to achieve a wider mentality change in the

                                                            35 Civil Court N° 74 received the ISO 9002 certification

56

administration of justice and the case management. Unfortunately, for some scholars (Sandra Elena

interview n° 5) the main point of the PROJUM was to appear merely as a computerized system and

furniture modernization program.

My fieldwork mainly focused on the Civil Courts participating in the Program and one court

from outside the program. The first impression, when visiting the PROJUM courts, was to observe a

new layout , modern and suitable furniture, orderly space and a remarkably better organization than

the one in the courts outside the program. A contrasting situation was perceived in the non-PROJUM

Courts visited, in which the furniture and layout were obsolete, and the organization was much less

efficient and convenient. Carlos Molina Portela (interview N° 2) stressed the effective improvements

in the building and organizational items despite the fact that he insisted on the limited outcomes of

the PROJUM.

d) Evaluation of the control exerted over the products provided by the Court users.

This activity aims at evaluating the initial judicial procedures such as the judicial petitions by court

users, the reception of presentations and communication of them and its delivery according to the

changes introduced by the “New Management Model” (FORES- NCSC, 2005).

The changes achieved in the process of initiation of the judicial claims are scarce. The most

notorious advantage introduced by IURIX is that the data obtained in external administrative units

must not be reloaded in the PROJUM Courts and that the information is also available in the UACs

(Common Administrative Units) created by the PROJUM (FORES-NCSC, 2005).

e) Evaluation of the software IURIX.

This activity undertaken by FORES aims at “comparing paper-based documents with digital

documents: to determine if the information contained in the system IURIX is updated; to establish the

reasons of the mismatches –in case they existed- and suggest corrective measures; to receive the

motives for which differences could have taken place; to identify patterns, to suggest corrective

measurements; and to define if court judgments are easily available in internet.” (FORES- NCSC,

2005)

“All the checked records were loaded in IURIX in some cases with minimal mismatches. The

information of the files of the Model Courts is available in the terminals of computerized public

57

consultation in the 12 Courts, coinciding with the information registered in IURIX.” (FORES-

NCSC, 2005)

The availability of the information of the records in Internet is diverse: there is no information

in internet about the Court of Resistencia and Mar Del Plata; in the Social Security Courts only the

procedural situation is published; in the Civil and Commercial there exists the possibility of gaining

access to full judicial resolutions texts. The information in paper-based documents coincides with the

loaded information in the software IURIX. There is no data base of Court judgments, wherefore they

are not available for consultation neither in the system IURIX nor in Internet. (FORES- NCSC,

2005)

Figure N° 5 - Veracity of information available in the IURIX system.

Source: FORES Report

Empirical research- Court staff perception about IURIX .

According to the information collected in the interviews conducted in civil courts, the opinions about

the new computerized system IURIX provided by the PROJUM were generally positive. Casas

(interview n° 1) remarked that the software IURIX was outstanding : all the Court staff share the

same agenda. “It differentiates the several types of audiences. It provides statistics and it can

recognize the differences between the various types of trials. It can instantly determine the

productivity of the agents and all the personal work available on a daily basis.” Judge Casas said that

58

until PROJUM in Civil Court N° 74 there were neither hardware nor computers provided officially

by the Judicial Administration. Initially, the PROJUM computers had been provided by the judge

himself or by the workers from their private budget. The PROJUM provided the court with “official

computers” and equipment.

This was not the case with the other Civil Courts visited. Civil Court N° 78 and Civil Court

N° 46 both had already computerized systems provided officially before the PROJUM. Silvia De

Carli.(interview n° 3) qualified the software IURIX as a “good” product. Molina Portela also,

referring to IURIX, qualified it as a better system than the previous one.

However, as it can be observed in the FORES report, (FORES- NCSC, 2005) the opinions are

not uniform and the general perception about the software IURIX was qualified in the variable “range

of satisfaction and adequacy” as “middle” among all the PROJUM Courts staff in 2005 when the

evaluation process was carried out– see Figure N° 6.-

Figure N° 6 - Court staff perception about the New Management Model

Source: FORES-NCSC Report.

Survey among the Court staff: According to the survey I carried out among the personnel of

Civil Court N° 74 the employees’ opinion about the software IURIX was positive. 85% of the

workers surveyed qualified the software IURIX as “good” and the other 15% as “Excellent”.

Also, among the employees of the National Civil Court N° 78, the result was positive. 70% of

the surveyed staff qualified the software IURIX as “Good” and only 30 % as “regular”.

The software IURIX is one of the most positive achievements of the PROJUM. Almost all the

interviewees agreed on its benefits and utility although some of them expressed some objections.

59

IURIX and the Judicial Council: Nevertheless, the Judicial Council (Resolution 93/08),

through a decision taken on 13th March 2008, decided not to replicate the IURIX system in all the

other National or Federal Courts founding the decision on reports and researches developed by internal

technical offices which advised the non-replication of IURIX and recommended to create a special

system for the National Judiciary. A new plan of computerization was launched, in which the internal

offices will elaborate a similar or better software system adequate to the concrete exigencies of the

National Judicial Power.

f) Evaluation of the Common Administrative Units(UACs);

The UACs are external administrative offices created by the PROJUM which display their activities

outside the PROJUM Courts aiming at achieving the decentralization of functions. The UACs are

designed to alleviate the administrative work of the Courts. The UACs principal functions are to

receive and archive the files or records, to make the external communications with other entities

outside the court and to store the records currently inactive (intermediate archive). They have three

main activities: the reception and archive of documents(URED), the courier services(UM) and the

provision of auto-consulting computerized units (UC). (FORES- NCSC, 2005)

In the Civil Courts and Social Security Courts at the moment of FORES evaluation (2005), the UACS

had been implemented partially. In the Federal Courts in the provinces and in the Commercial Courts

of Buenos Aires, only the Computerized Auto-Consulting Units were implemented. According to the

FORES evaluation report the objective of decentralization had been achieved only partially.

Empirical research:

This consisted mainly of informal interviews to two Pro-Secretarios and in situ observation of the

UAC created for Civil Courts of Buenos Aires. It was observed that an external administrative office

was created in which a large quantity of judicial records were stored.

Carlos Cabral Hunter (interview N°8) and Gabriela Guzzoni (interview N°9 ) said that the

UAC is under the administrative control of Civil Chamber of Appeals. One of the judges of the

PROJUM Courts has been appointed Coordinator of the UAC. The administrative technical

procedures used in the administration of the UAC are a mixture between the traditional administrative

tools and the new tools incorporated by the PROJUM. The interviewees informed that UAC was

created by the PROJUM exclusively for the Courts of the Program but lately, due to the success of the

60

UAC services, some other Civil Courts have been incorporated into the UAC administrative system.

Thus, nowadays they work not only for the PROJUM Courts but also for some other Civil Courts and

the plan for the future is to extend or “replicate” the UAC to all the National Civil Courts in the City

of Buenos Aires. Dra. Virginia Simari (interview N° 11), former PROJUM Executive Director and

current National Civil Judge, said that the replication of the UAC to other Civil Courts is an

achievement of the PROJUM. Simari affirmed that the PROJUM entailed an important “cultural”

change, another way of doing the work and, in some sense, the PROJUM has had some positive

results like the replication of the UAC to other Civil Courts. Also Silvia De Carli (interview N° 3)

stressed the utility of the UAC and the useful assistance provided to the Court.

g) Evaluation of the Court Users Group Perception

This activity carried out by FORES aimed at measuring the opinion and perception of Court users

(lawyers litigants, plaintiffs and respondents) about the results achieved with the establishment of the

new Model Court; and to compare the results obtained with the fieldwork carried out in August of

2003 by the PROJUM implementers. The main conclusions were framed by FORES-NCSC in the

following topics:

Table 11

Evaluation of the Court Users Group Perception   by FORES‐NCSC 

 Tangibility 

The appraisal of the elements of the service (installations, data processing teams, presence of the personnel, etc.) has been the aspect which most  improved in the perception of 

the users in all the Courts, except for the Court of Resistencia where practically  there were no changes according to the users’ opinion. (FORES‐ NCSC, 2005) 

Reliability The quality of  the jurisdictional and administrative services  of the courts and the compliance with  the normative of  the  Procedural Civil Code, among other aspects, was evaluated.  Certain improvement was perceived by the users of the 

Commercial Courts  and  Federal Court Nº 2 of Mar del Plata. The Civil Courts and the Federal Court of Resistencia had a negative change in users’ perception. The Social Security Court has not suffered substantial variations among both 

measurements.(FORES‐NCSC, 2005)   

 Capacity of answer  

 Aspects such as the efficacy of the court, the organization of the entrance office and the achievement  of  benefits (on Internet or terminals of Self consultation) were 

evaluated here. The Court users’ opinion results did not change from the fieldwork findings  in 2003 except for the 

Court of Resistencia, where a negative change was observed. (FORES‐ NCSC, 2005) 

 

Security  The Court users’ opinion about the confidentiality and the courtesy of the officials did not have changes, although in the courts of the interior, it became slightly more negative. 

(FORES‐ NCSC, 2005) 

 Empathy 

The opinion of users about the personnel capacity to offer 

 Satisfaction of expectations 

 The perception on the service received with respect to what 

61

a service of quality has improved in Social Security Courts.  On the contrary, in the Federal Court of Resistencia, the variation was negative, while in the other courts it  has 

been maintained relatively without changes. (FORES‐ NCSC, 2005) 

 

was expected to find has not changed in the Civil Courts; whereas in the Federal Court of Resistencia  it has become worse, while in the other courts it is perceived in a  more 

positive way. (FORES‐ NCSC, 2005) 

Figure N° 7 Model Court User Survey results- Comparison between 2003 and 2005.

Source: World Bank report.

Empirical research:

Judges Casas and Molina Portela argued that litigants have perceived positive changes in the

administration and case management of their courts. Casas pointed out that lawyers litigating in his

court are aware that they cannot abuse of procedural mechanisms to delay the disposal time of cases.

h) Evaluation of the Court personnel´ opinion.

This activity undertaken by FORES-NCSC aims at measuring the opinion of the judicial personnel

(judges, officials and workers) about the PROJUM implementation ex ante and ex post, mainly about

the “New Management Model”; the satisfaction of the range of quality norms, of court personnel´s

expectations and the detection of critical aspects of PROJUM (FORES-NCSC, 2005).

FORES findings in this activity showed that for 51 % of the Court personnel the New

Management Model implemented worsened or did not change the Court efficiency; 52% think that

62

the new organic structure does not modify the judicial process dynamic or it causes delays; 45 %

expressed that the administrative activity quality remained the same; 80% considered IURIX as easy

to operate; nevertheless, 57% said that IURIX not only did not facilitate the work, but it even

obstructed the work; the training received was perceived as insufficient by the majority of the

personnel; the new layout was adequate for 39 %; 54 % considered that the New Management Model

is working below their expectations. (FORES- NCSC, 2005)

Empirical Research

Survey to the Court staff: According to the survey carried out among the staff of Civil Court N° 74 the

employees’ opinion about the PROJUM outcomes was also positive. 50% of the surveyed staff

considered that the case disposal time, the backlog rates and the overall Court administration had

significantly improved and the other 50 % said that the changes had not been so clear but showed

confidence in the reform.

In contrast, the employees of the National Civil Court N° 78, showed very disparate opinions.

For 67 % of the employees surveyed the PROJUM had not improved the overall functioning of the

court. For 83 % of them the case disposal time had not diminished and the backlog rate had not

improved.

i) Evaluation of the Training Programs;

This activity of FORES-NCSC evaluated the impact produced by the training programs given to

judges and court workers under the Skills Learning Plan of the New Management Model.

FORES-NCSC informed that the identification of training needs had not been well

elaborated and the courses did not take into account either the reality of the work in the Courts or the

human resources composition. In general, the training teams provided by PROJUM were considered

as skilled for the task and the material provided in the course adequate to reform needs. For some of

the surveyed personnel, the courses were inopportune; some of them were too soon and some others

too late. The Court staff pointed out the absence of permanent technical assistance, the resistance

existent in the Judiciary to the management logic and that the importance of this aspect had been

overlooked. (FORES- NCSC, 2005)

63

Figure N°8: Impact of the Training Courses adequacy to the “New Management Model” .

Source: FORES-NCSC Report

Figure N°9: Court Personnel general opinion about the training courses.

Source: FORES-NCSC Report

Empirical research:

By means of the empirical research conducted on Civil Courts 74 and 78, all the personnel surveyed

confirmed their participation in the training courses. The training received was qualified by Civil

Court 74 personnel as “good” by 83% of the surveyed group and as “excellent” by 16%. To the

question if the skills learned during the training courses were used in the daily work, 50% answered

affirmatively that they use the knowledge acquired and the other 50% that they seldom use it.

In Civil Court 78 the training received was qualified as “good” by 50% of the surveyed group

and as “regular” by the other 50 %. To the question if the skills learned in the training courses were

used in the daily work, 50% answered that they rarely used the knowledge acquired, 34 % answered

that they did not use the skills every day and 16 % answered that they did use it.

Final comments about the Managerial evaluation of PROJUM

64

From the previous analysis some broader conclusions can be reached to the extent that the PROJUM

had disparate results depending on the courts’ commitment to the reform. It is not easy to explain

these disparate results. Lower court dynamics has made courts become like units isolated from each

other and depending almost exclusively on the leadership of the Judge. This is in some way justified

in order to preserve the principle of independence of justice, but this isolation of lower courts is

perceived nowadays as an obstacle to court modernization. One important issue of the judicial

reform programs in Argentina was to strengthen the communication among judges36. These factors

are intrinsically connected with the leadership and judicial government concepts. The organizational

structure of courts at national level as independent units has strengthened their isolation, since the

control exerted over them by the Higher level of the judiciary is exceptional and only for extreme and

grave cases. This makes judges lead the court under their own exclusive criteria and explains in some

way the difference in the results among the courts.

The great number of activities carried out by the PROJUM has been evaluated by FORES-

NCSC and the results obtained, to a great extent, correspond to the instability shown by all the

PROJUM courts, in which in situ observation was carried out. The general opinion is that the

PROJUM failed. The implementation mechanisms chosen by the PROJUM are considered not to be a

complete and effective way to promote judicial reform. The PROJUM failed in its implementation and

in its initial delay, as well as in the design of the program itself, which included no mechanism to

promote the participation of local stakeholders. Nonetheless, considering the final failure of the

program, its design was not as relevant as the lack of consensus and participation of stakeholders and

the absence of a strong leadership, factors that had a great influence in the negative results of the

program. This claim is corroborated by the fact that even today the positive results of the PROJUM

are maintained by the isolated efforts of judges without any kind of support from the higher levels of

the judiciary. The lack of leadership and the lack of a strong guidance from the judicial governance

authorities has been evident in the PROJUM case. This lack of leadership was present during all the

program and is still evident after its conclusion.

                                                            

36 See table 2. One of the programs aimed at improving communication among judges

65

PART IV

EXPLANATIONS

The 2001 Crisis in Argentina and the PROJUM

“Argentina’s economic collapse in December 2001 is seen as perhaps the most emblematic evidence of the failure of neoliberalism in the developing world to provide sustainable and equitable economic growth. A new policy frame has gradually emerged since the crisis which relies on a more active state in the promotion of growth.”(Grugel et al, 2007:2)

With the definitive breakdown of the economy in December 2001 in Argentina all the spheres of the

governance system were affected. The ruin of the convertibility system (monetary system that

equalized one peso to one dollar), which had survived for 10 years, percolated all over the political

system and in a few weeks provoked the resignation of President De La Rua after being only two

years in office. The social situation became very grave with millions of people below the poverty line,

with the payment chains broken, private property rights seriously restricted, the banking system

collapsed, the shadows of bankruptcies hanging over small farmers and producers and the proliferation

of claims in courts asking for the return of the deposited funds in bank accounts. All the system had

collapsed and more than 30 people had died in the turmoil of those disastrous days of December 2001.

This was the environment in which the PROJUM had to be implemented. To some extent the

delays in its initiation were widely justified. It is not a minor question that the IFIs had been seriously

engaged with the convertibility system and all the unpopular policy decisions of privatization, free

markets, and deregulation which had devastated the country and had received the support of IFIs -

mainly the IMF-.

This breakdown affected seriously the payment chains provoking the proliferation of new

claims through a specific judicial petition “el Amparo Judicial”37 which seriously overloaded the

work of the courts. This is the main factor that weakened the court performance indicators and

backlog rates measurements in the PROJUM. The courts were overloaded with amparo complaints.

                                                            37 The amparo judicial is a quick trial when rights are affected without any other judicial proper remedy.

66

Social and political sectors reacted accordingly to this situation of breakdown and successive

presidents were appointed by the Congress in order to face the worst crisis in the history of the country

and its uncertain future.

To mitigate the disastrous effects of the crisis the Mesa de Diálogo Argentino was created,

with its “Mesa Permanente para la Reforma de la Justicia del Diálogo Argentino”. This was a Catholic

Church initiative with the support of UNDP and the government (Riggirozzi, 2006:53). It was a forum

with wide representation of social sectors in order to contribute to overcome the crisis through the

elaboration of proposals for economic and institutional reforms. (Riggirozzi, 2006:53).

Five main commissions were created to promote judicial reforms, namely: Access to Justice,

ADR Mechanisms, judicial training, judicial backlogs, judicial delay reduction and judges

profile.(Garavano et al, 2003) . NGO delegates, policy makers, magistrates and judicial

representatives participated in the commissions. Several projects were proposed, some of which

effectively implemented.

During this period the PROJUM implementation was delayed but in the streets of Argentina

the political turmoil was a daily event. A new role of the state in the economics was in the scene: “In

Argentina, the search for post-crisis governance has involved a more dynamic role for the state in the

pursuit of growth and social stability”(Grugel et al, 2007) This tendency, jointly with the scarce

credibility of IFIs38 as efficient promoter of sustainable changes and development in Latin American

countries, impacted negatively on the PROJUM as well. Its lack of connection with the Mesa de

Diálogo proposals was evident. The efforts of political parties concentrated on the enactment of

emergency statutes which impeded the operability of bankruptcy regimes and suspended the mortgage

recoveries. The whole legal system was subjected to an impasse. In the overall assessment of the

PROJUM by the WB it is clearly expressed that “[t]he Project should not have been started when the

judiciary's governance structure may have been undergoing a substantial change. Neither should the

Bank have persisted in pushing a project when there was lack of commitment from the authorities

responsible for its execution.”(World Bank website39, the emphasis is mine).

                                                            38 In 2005–6 the government of Argentina decided to repay its whole debt to the International Monetary Fund with

the sole purpose of avoiding IMF intervention.

39 http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/main?pagePK=64193027&piPK=64187937&theSitePK=523679&menuPK=64187510&

67

However, the PROJUM continued and was finally implemented but to some extent all these

“globalised” changes experimented in Argentina affected seriously its final chances to succeed.

In this scenario some other important factors influenced positively or negatively the PROJUM

outcomes, namely:

1) Absence of Judicial Independence:

The political struggles to influence the judiciary are historically rooted in old practices, which have

determined the role that the Judiciary usually played during history as supporter of Executive policies,

which affects and often impedes any attempt to produce judicial reform. The conservative character

of the judiciary coming from colonial times, resistant to outside changes, its closely connection with

the political power and the historical dependency on the Executive and the economic elites dictates

have systematically weakened the effectiveness of the judiciary and undermined its independence.

This “Politicisation of the Supreme Court and Executive interference in the judiciary” has made it

much “easier to find pro-reform actors at lower levels of the judiciary and at the level of the ministry

of justice”.(Riggirozzi, 2006)

As the World Bank itself indicates, in order to avoid the political struggles around the

Judiciary, (hence to avoid to interfere with the Executive policies towards the judiciary) the way

attempted was to produce changes in the Judiciary improving its effectiveness (court delays,

organizational skills, etc) through management tools setting aside the more problematic issues like

“independence or transparency of the judiciary”(Riggirozzi, 2006) But this depoliticized strategy

assumed by the World Bank, paradoxically provoked more political problems among the actors

involved instead of alleviating the conflicts which, to a great extent, confirms the claim made here

about the need for more empirical research and agency previous to the programs launching and the

building of a real previous consensus among policy makers, and judicial and academic actors

involved.

2) The reform methodology chosen by the WB reinforced the status-quo.

The lack of involvement in the PROJUM design and implementation of researchers and policy

makers and other actors and the setting aside of reform proposals, already designed by local expertise,

                                                                                                                                                                                          searchMenuPK=64187283&theSitePK=523679&entityID=000112742_20060724121459&searchMenuPK=64187283&theSitePK=523679 (09-10-2008)

68

show in some way that the path followed by the WB with the PROJUM led to empower the

“executive-judiciary’s status-quo” (Riggirozzi, 2006) instead of promoting effective judicial reform.

“Recognising that various interests are involved in the local distribution of aid funds is critical for international donors to encourage linkages between research and experts groups that hold other sets of ideas and proposals different from those supported or close to government positions. The lack of recognition of these points in the case of judicial reform in Argentina led the Bank’s Legal Department, willingly or not, to support a ‘depoliticised’ judicial reform agenda that led to a stalemate situation enhancing the government’s agenda, and with it empowering the Executive-judiciary’s status-quo, while des-empowering local experts and civil society organizations that sustained the need to change governance underpinning of the system.”(Riggirozzi, 2006:48)

3) Operational difficulties in achieving effective judicial reform and political consensus.

Creating an effective judicial reform in Argentina is a very difficult task. In this sense the role of the

WB and IFIs, in general, could be very productive for improving domestic institutions but these

attempts should not be disconnected from the already existent state of the art of local academics and

reform programs projected by policy makers with scarce implementation power (Riggirozzi , 2006).

This necessity of consensus became evident in the case of the PROJUM, in which, in order to avoid

political problems and choosing a managerial approach, the problems and struggles were

paradoxically multiplied to an extent in which the continuity of the program was posed to significant

risk. As one of the interviewees confirmed, the initial delays rested more on policy decisions

(supported both by the WB and the government) rather than on the inefficiency of the executive

units.(Simari, interview N° 11)

These “operational” difficulties in producing an effective judicial reform have been stressed by

many argentine authors:

“Binder concluded that the many and diverse steps taken at both federal and state [provincial] levels to carry out judicial reform have been difficult to sustain and have fluctuated to the point where they have become enervated. A permanent standoff occurs between the forces of reform and those who seek the political manipulation of the judiciary, forces that are distributed equally in all the key institutions: the executive, Congress, political parties, academia, and lawyers’ associations. Early efforts to promote a coherent national policy of judicial reform did not prosper, and in the two decades since democracy was restored, the debate between reformers and those resistant to change has been a constant. Although a certain “social consensus” and “technical consensus” in favor of integral judicial reform has been attained, there is no political consensus to move the process forward. In an environment such as this, smaller-scale “impact” reforms should be carried out to improve the quality and delivery of judicial services. In general, far more progress has been made on the criminal than on the civil law side and at the micro level rather than at the top.”(De Shazo et al, 2006)

The difficulties to reach political consensus on Judicial Reform is one of the main obstacles to succeed

in judicial reform efforts. Because of that, the promotion of networking activities, like the ones

69

developed by think tanks and advocacy NGOs, can become an important tool to install or reinforce

judicial reform in the government policy agenda.

4) Lack of leadership and the absence of a strong Judicial Government.

Precisely a “smaller “impact” reform”(Binder, 2006) was the PROJUM but it was, however, not

successful. To a great extent, those poor results rested further on the lack of a serious commitment of

judicial government authorities rather than on the way chosen for the reform. This lack of leadership

(Elena, interview N° 5) was accentuated by the fact that in the PROJUM times the Judicial Council

had recently begun its activities and hard conflicts of power had aroused with the Supreme Court of

Justice. This shows that consensus should also comprise a strong leadership of the higher levels of the

judiciary with policy power for implementation. Consensus without leadership would not be sufficient,

furthermore, leadership is the key word for future reform processes and, therefore, a strong

redefinition of judicial government is required.

As already said, the initial delay condemned all the program chances to succeed and

predisposed some stakeholders to its failure.

To some extent the conservative character of the Supreme Court, such as inhibiting reform,

can be ratified by the limited character of the last Court administration plan recently launched by the

Supreme Court and the Judicial Council, in which the lessons learned through the PROJUM were not

taken into account and the plan recently launched circumscribes to give recommendations very far

from the suggestions of the epistemic communities and the “lessons learned” with the PROJUM. This

lack of positive reaction in pro of reforming courts and the superficial attitude approaching judicial

reform can be very disappointing for some stakeholders and can cause a paralyzing effect.

Leadership is intrinsically connected to the concept of judicial government. A serious judicial

government (gobierno judicial) in the hands of the judicial branch itself (Garavano, 2005;

Hammergren , 2005:3) should comprise the functions of monitoring the courts performance and the

institutional policies for the sector, the traditional budget administration, the selection of human

resources -mainly the justices, the control over the judicial career and the administrative careers.

(Hammergren, 2005:3).

Some interviewees (Elena, interview N° 5) pointed out the lack of leadership in the program

administration with the consequent lack of commitment by judicial authorities. This instability in the

70

judicial government was more profound and evident in the initial stages of the program when the

Supreme Court, the Ministry of Justice and the Judicial Council were struggling to exert the judicial

government and the control over the PROJUM (World Bank, 2006 ) Even though the stagnant

situation was improved later, it was too late to achieve positive results since the “public opinion”,

mainly among the key actors involved, had stigmatized the project and, consequently, the scarce

enthusiasm for the program collapsed.

5) Little policy continuity in Institution Building in Argentina

Another remarkable point in institution building initiatives in Argentina is the scarce range of

continuity of public policies across time and successive governments. In the specific case of judicial

reform at the beginning of this research, the Programa Integral de Reforma Judicial (a comprehensive

program launched by the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights in 1998), was available on the web. It

had been launched the same year in which the PROJUM had been negotiated by the WB and the

Argentine government. The program was abandoned some years ago and the initiative vanished due

to this lack of continuity.40

Even the non-replication of the PROJUM to other courts is showing the deficiency of policy

continuity. The Judicial Council had two meetings to deal with the replication or not of the PROJUM

and decided against it, even though two Courts of Appellation had requested it.

6) Absence of policy consensus

The non replication of the PROJUM to other non-participant national courts decided by the Judicial

Council after the conclusion of the program shows that the lack of consensus about the program,

rather than a defective design of the program itself, led to the PROJUM failure. Probably, if the

Program had been agreed on by main policy and research actors under a strong leadership exerted by

judicial governance institutions, the program would have been successfully completed. The non

replication of the program was decided because its results were very poor and the WB lack of will in

its support was also remarkable. “Moreover, a second project that was proposed as a continuation of

PROJUM, the ‘Reform of the Judicial System’ (Project ID 55479) was in the pipeline to be

                                                            40 The comprehensive program web site provided a very useful data base of programs and initiatives. Amazingly, in the last days the access was not possible. The web site “was”: www.reformajudicial.jus.gov.ar . and it had been very useful for this research.

71

implemented in the fiscal year 1999 but was later cancelled in the light of the PROJUM results

(Dakolias 2004: interview).” (Riggirozzi, 2007: 22)

In the face of the strong difficulties, the only solution to be chosen was to abandon the

program, both by local authorities and the WB , instead of reinforcing mechanisms to secure its

continuity. This lack of commitment with the program is in some sense evidencing lack of

responsibility and a hazardous misuse of human and financial resources. The lack of commitment

with the program continuity is a serious warning for local actors, mainly judges and court personnel,

against this kind of programs financed by IFIs where not only local governance authorities seriousness

is at stake but also the credibility of IFIs.

. As said above, the main claims regarding judicial reform in Argentina were not heard. Binder

(2006) speaks about the existence of at least three big currents in judicial reform41, only one of them

was taken into account by the WB program without building a minimal consensus among the other

theorists claims.

As regards the empirical research, it should be pointed out that the anarchic way in which the

PROJUM was implemented, with practically no assistance from the higher levels of the judiciary to

the judges of the PROJUM courts, confirms the lack of adequacy of the PROJUM to the local context,

and the conflicts of power are evidencing once again the absence of contextualization and leadership.

7) Political struggles constraining judicial reform processes

Dezalay and Garth (2002) claim that judicial reform initiatives in Latin America under the frame of

LAD are bound by a phenomenon called “The Logic of Half Failed Transplants”. The phenomenon is

a consequence of the palace wars operating in the north and the south, in which the “cosmopolitan

elites” in the south exert a hegemonic control over the state of the art produced in the north taking

advantage of their capabilities to “study abroad and in particular in the US”. “The power and

legitimacy of this elite in large part comes from its claim not just to privileged backgrounds and

connections but rather their possession of state-of-the-art technologies of governance”(Dezalay et al,

2002:246-50). The cosmopolitan elites are also “embedded in structures of powers with important

intermediaries able to keep the social peace” essential to maintain their elite status. Always behaving

in defense of the elites’ privileges, some interruptions are destined to the import of institutions

                                                            41 I alluded to these currents intervening in judicial reform in pages 24 and 25.

72

delegating the task to the successive generations. The future generations will bring the “latest

technologies” in a process reproduced dialectically through time.(Dezalay et al, 2002:246-50)

A critical socio-legal approach to the Dezalay and Garth (2002) theory suggests that even

though it is not entirely applicable to the Argentine case, it serves to emphasize the conservative role

of the judiciary coming from colonial times, and the struggles around the judiciary in which elites

(through corporate law firms, governmental and judicial positions, economic concentration, etc.)

have a predominant role. It also serves to remark that political pressures on the judiciary have not

diminished with the initiatives of judicial reform undertaken in the last years as, for instance, through

the creation of the judicial council even though some improvements have been achieved. The

situation is not as dramatic as in previous years since the new appointments of justices in the Supreme

Court undertaken by the Kirchner administration have slightly improved the chronic situation of

judicial dependence on the Executive. The Supreme Court “public image” has improved in the last

years and the prestige of the new appointees is widely recognized.

In the case of Argentina, the palace wars social scheme is partially applicable and more

research should be undertaken to prove the claim that the non conclusion of the reform programs is

based on a family–power nucleus base. However, the surprising work of Dezalay and Garth (2002)

and their empirical approach is very useful to understand and deepen socio–legal scholarship about

legal exports and imports and the social forces surrounding transplants and institutional reforms in

Latin America.

8) Governance struggles in the Judicial Government

The governance struggles between the National Supreme Court and the Judicial Council, which

affected seriously the PROJUM in its initial delays, were also a key factor in the failure of the

PROJUM. The high financial costs of this program, which impeded its easy replication, and the lack

of governance support (leadership) were the main reasons for the non-replication of the program.

Nevertheless, to achieve governance support for this kind of programs does not seem to be an easy

task at National Judicial levels and these difficulties (World Bank, 2001), connected to consensus

building (Binder, 2006 ) in the national judiciary in Argentina, moved WB units to prefer the Pilot

methodology in order to settle judicial reform as a key aspect of the agenda of the government in

institutional building in Argentina. Moreover, the enormous effort ,which entails the reform of

73

National Courts in the city of Buenos Aires, cannot be dismissed. There are hundreds of national

courts only in the city of Buenos Aires. The task undoubtedly cannot be undervalued and the efforts

to achieve improvements in judicial administration should be supported mainly by judicial governance

institutions and policy makers.

9) Resistance of local actors to reformist processes undertaken with IFIs external

intervention

The inability of the program to propose a sustainable system for judicial reform in Argentina through

the PROJUM was a consequence of intrinsic difficulties of the judicial reform and the lack of

leadership from the authorities in which the absence of a solid judicial government should be stressed

again. From the beginning, the program appeared not to be contextualized with the aspirations and

expectations of local actors. It was definitely resisted by almost all of them, each arguing different

reasons.

The high levels of the judiciary probably have seen in the program a threat to their rooted

practices and their style of judicial administration. This tendency, as explained above, is based on the

fact that the judiciary usually perceives –often with justified reasons- external interventions in their

internal affairs as a dangerous practice which challenges judicial independence and the status quo.

The PROJUM was launched by the Executive without any commitment of the judiciary but only some

isolated support from very few judicial actors.

Policy makers from the Ministry of Justice perceived the PROJUM as a program far from

the policy goals followed by them through the implementation of some other programs which had

already been launched with insufficient financial resources(Garavano, interview N° 6). “Argentina

already had 15 years of experience in studies and investigation on judicial reform before the

involvement of the World Bank. 'Yet existing studies were ignored by the World Bank mission and

therefore delayed the start of the projects. The result was an over-diagnosed sector with limited

capacity of policy implementation' (Lynch 2003: interview).” (Riggirozzi, 2006:56)

Think tanks engaged with organizational reform and case management did not agree with the

lack of participatory mechanisms impeding local expertise intervention. “The emergence of

programmes for judicial reform based on local knowledge has not always encountered political

interlocutors among the key actors within the judiciary. As a consequence, there has been a growing

74

gap between local knowledge supply and lack of demand for policy proposals from policy-

makers.”(Riggirozzi, 2006:56)

NGOs and advocacy civil societies, engaged with a more political vision of the reforms

needed, posed resistance to the “rational” model to be implemented and to the role played by the WB

as “lobbyist” of the interests of core countries and supporting government policies which were

seriously questioned for the lack of transparency and the evident manipulation of the Supreme Court

of those days. “The perception of local experts that the World Bank pursued de-contextualised

approaches aimed at benchmarking reform processes have limited debate and reduced the process to

one best way of doing things. International agencies have sometimes supported research that fits their

own and their government's agendas.” (Riggirozzi, 2006:56) feel

Judges and court staff complained, in many instances, of being overloaded with the

additional burdens that entailed the implementation of the program and the training schedule as well as

isolated in their efforts. This is strongly connected with the organizational structure of the national

judiciary in which “Court's collegial organization works against a leadership role and in favour of

corporate interest.”(Riggirozzi, 2006:55) In case that lower judicial levels were able to sustain a

“policy proposal (or support to existing ones)” (Riggirozzi, 2006:55), they would have very few

chances to implement it. Nonetheless, some judges and court staff showed a remarkable enthusiasm

(Casas, Interview, N° 1) supporting the program because they realized judicial administration

deficiencies were challenging their own professional reputation.(Molina Portela, Interview N° 2)

A culture of resistance to IFIs intervention, as evidenced in the resistance exerted by key

actors, is a widespread and visible phenomenon intrinsically linked to nation state paradigms. During

PROJUM times it was politically correct for the judicial-political and academic actors to take a

political position against the PROJUM (Simari, interview N° 11 ). This perception shows, in some

way, how deep the struggles around the PROJUM were and also about the World Bank intervention in

domestic judicial reform in Argentina.

The absence of previous networking and consensus building by the World Bank is to be

emphasized and, even though the impact of the PROJUM is still not definitely closed, it explains the

negative socio-political environment among key actors, in which the PROJUM was developed; an

argument confirmed by some interviewees (Interviews N° 6, 7, 11).

75

The role played by the WB in the last decades has turned it into a key actor in judicial reform

matters in Argentina. WB intervention and its impact on policy–research nexus has been thoughtfully

accounted by Rigirozzi (2006, 2007). The lack of participation of the epistemic communities and even

from the more qualified policy makers in the PROJUM was remarked and this explains, to some

extent, the poor results achieved by the program. Furthermore, some researchers with long experience

in judicial reform stressed that WB intervention in the Argentine judicial reform ultimately “sterilized

local efforts”. (Riggirozzi, 2007:22)

Nonetheless, not the whole intervention of IFIs is questioned and resisted in judicial reform in

Argentina by key actors. On many occasions, the WB intervention is seen as a relief and as a real

facilitator of improvement and development. Indeed many WB programs in Argentina at National and

Provincial levels have had satisfactory outcomes42. Unfortunately, this was not the case in the

PROJUM at the national levels of the judiciary. To some extent, the reason for this to occur was not

having followed the lessons previously learned by the WB (Carothers, 2003) on previous occasions .

The requirement of ownership in the terms used by the WB and IFIs had already been stressed before

to the PROJUM launching (Shihata, 1995 a). The lack of “ownership” was evident in the PROJUM

case. This lack of ownership made the program fail from the moment it was launched. Even the WB

assessment report qualifies performances of the WB and Argentinean authorities as unsatisfactory.

10) High financial costs of the Project

Another important question about the program was the large amount of money for the loan, considered

as exorbitant by some stakeholders and which made the replication of the program economically non-

advisable. Five million US dollars, or more, were invested by Argentina in the program to reform only

12 courts. Approximately 416.000 US dollars per court were invested. Only in the city of Buenos

Aires there are more than 600 Courts. The major goal of the program was its replication. The

replication of the program with those costs became practically impossible. The relation

implementation costs –results obtained- was at the centre of the scene and sustained critics about the

program. One of the most important arguments of the actors opposed to the program continuity was

                                                            42 See for instance a WB program in Province of Santa Fe: http://www-

wds.worldbank.org/external/default/main?pagePK=64193027&piPK=64187937&theSitePK=523679&menuPK=64187510&searchMenuPK=64187283&theSitePK=523679&entityID=000333038_20080813005942&searchMenuPK=64187283&theSitePK=523679 (08-25-2008)

76

the fact that after having invested more than one million dollars, the only visible achievement of the

program was the provision of computers to the courts

Many interviewees pointed out the lack of correspondence between the money invested and

the results obtained, stressing that better results could be achieved with less funds. Moreover, some

programs later implemented in the provinces achieved much better results with ten per cent of the

PROJUM budget, specifically , the case of the Province of Rio Negro (Elena et al, 2007:112). The

Rio Negro program was also a program attempting to make changes in court management and

administration, but the results were positive with a much smaller budget. The participatory

commitment and the strong leadership of the Rio Negro Provincial Supreme Court were the main

factors (Elena et al, 2007) argued by some interviewees for the achievement of positive results.

11) Pressures for Argentine courts to adopt global norms. Isomorphism (Powel & Di Maggio,

1983)

The mirror effect followed by public organizations when seeking to improve their organizations can be

approached trying to answer to what extent the more rational organizational styles operant in more

developed organizations in the same organizational field can be used to improve the outcomes in the

own activities.

Di Maggio and Powell (1983) argue that it is to ask why organizational fields43 tend to be

similar instead of asking why they are different. Following this idea they claim that in organizational

fields there operates an organizational rule that makes “the organizations more similar without

necessarily making them more efficient”.

“The concept that best captures the process of homogenization is isomorphism[….] isomorphism is a constraining process that forces one unit in a population to resemble other units that face the same set of environmental condition. At the population level, such an approach suggests that organizational characteristics are modified in the direction of increasing compatibility with environmental characteristics.” (Di Maggio et al, 1983:149 )

The authors set out three mechanisms of Institutional Isomorphic change:

• Coercive Isomorphism: it stems from political influence and the problem of legitimacy. It is

imposed by legal or authoritative constraints.

                                                            43 Organizational field is conceptualized by the authors as "those organizations that, in the aggregate, constitute a

recognized area of institutional life"

77

• Mimetic Isomorphism: (modeling) resulting from standard responses to uncertainty or

modeling. The tendency to imitate better organizations.

• Normative Isomorphism: Associated with professionalization. Quality norms

standardization, accountancy norms, etc

The above is an analytical distinction since empirically it can be intermingled among different

types.

The authors try to elaborate predictors of isomorphism that should be tested empirically. One

of the hypothesis elaborated by the authors corresponding to institutional coercive isomorphism is

that:

The greater the dependence of one organization on another organization, the more similar it will

become to that organization in structure, climate and behavioural focus.( Hypothesis A-1)

The aforementioned organizational hypothesis makes us speculate why in the PROJUM the

lower Court levels of the judiciary were chosen as Pilots. Probably, if the program had included in

its design high level courts jointly with low courts, the program would have been more easily

replicated. The fact that the more serious problems like courts backlogs and delays were in lower

courts does not seem to be a solid argument to avoid the fact that in Argentina higher level courts

have much more implementation power than lower courts . This characteristic of organization of

courts in Argentina is remarkable. The lack of leadership from higher courts and its lack of

commitment with the PROJUM is evidencing to some extent that a serious hierarchical factor was not

taken into account by the PROJUM design. This issue is linked to and brings back the problem of the

judicial government in Argentina once again.

Beyond the hypothetical character of the aforementioned argument, my intention is to draw

attention to this point: the chances of the PROJUM would have increased if the higher levels of the

judiciary had been included in the program or if, at least their engagement in the program had been

stronger. Higher Courts had no participation in the program and if they did have any, it was secondary.

In a globalized world isomorphism is a recurrent phenomenon for leading organizations. The

organizational skills were a central point in the PROJUM and isomorphism can be observed in the

program through coercive isomorphism (despite the lack of commitment of higher levels of the

judiciary) and normative isomorphism.

78

Mimetic isomorphism of organizational forms can be adverted in the free initiatives held by

think tanks and civil society efforts and programs. The subtle power of PROJUM in installing the

necessity that the judiciary adapts its own administration to global organizational parameters also

corresponds to an increasing tendency of adaptation of the administration of justice, mainly in Latin

America, to the templates of the northern countries . The agencies in the promotion of judicial reform

have proliferated in the last years being CEJA (ASJC) -an initiative held by American states aiming at

supporting technically reform efforts in the continent- one of the most important initiatives.

Another example of the relevance of judicial reform in the agenda of Latin American countries

is the Cumbre Judicial Iberoamericana which also includes Andorra, Spain and Portugal. In the last

meeting, the Cumbre Judicial Iberoamericana, the thematic organization was focused on Judicial

modernization, legal security and predictability, access to justice and social cohesion (Revista Cumbre

Judicial Iberoamericana, 2008).

One of the most relevant virtues of foreign aid programs(in this case the PROJUM), as many

interviewees(Simari, interview N° 11) asserted, was to install the necessity of judicial reform in the

agenda, not only of the governments but also the judges, actors involved such as lawyers, NGOs, etc.

The replication of the UAC in the Civil Courts of Buenos Aires, primarily destined to serve

only to the PROJUM courts, and now extended to some courts non-participant in the Program, is a

relevant issue to be remarked. The benefits of an external unit to deal with external communications of

courts and to serve as intermediate archive of records have been perceived by some other civil courts.

They requested to use the UAC since this external unit alleviates considerably the work in courts. Here

mimetic isomorphism can also be adverted since some civil courts are modeling on the PROJUM

courts.

Finally, the aforementioned factors around the PROJUM and the national judiciary enlighten

some of the restraints as well as the chances of a future federal judicial reform process mainly in the

city of Buenos Aires, where my fieldwork was conducted. The judicial style of courts and its

administrative hierarchical organization make any reform of the National and Federal Judiciary in the

city of Buenos Aires a very complex task. The huge quantity of courts also makes the coordination

among them difficult and its modernization will require a strong decision making process based on a

79

strong leadership of the judicial governance authorities, (Elena et al, 2007:103) as well as on the

broadest political and technical consensus available. (Binder, 2006)

The Pilot has been very useful to clarify the next steps of judicial reform in Argentina. The

goal of improving court performance indicators and circumscribing the judicial reform to managerial

aspects is very laudable even though it ignores important items of judicial reform. Some important

conclusions can be drawn from the PROJUM. The most important of them is that any reform program

should be decided with the participation and the strong commitment of the judicial governance

authorities (Elena et al, 2007:103), at this moment, the Supreme Court and the Judicial Council. The

decision to launch a Judicial Reform Program at National level cannot be decided unilaterally by the

Executive even though its participation is unavoidable. The process should be led by the Supreme

Court and the Judicial Council with a strong support and commitment of the other government

branches. Beyond the fact that the non-replication of the PROJUM is a final decision, the positive

achievements of the PROJUM should be strongly stressed and widely disseminated in which Civil

Court N° 74 it can play an important role as a court model granted with an ISO 9002 certificate. The

layout inadequacy and administrative organization deficiencies are still evident in non PROJUM

courts. The knowledge generated by local stakeholders and its expertise should be taken into account

by future initiatives and the stakeholders participation should be guaranteed by the project design

itself. With the accomplishment of some conditions, future programs could become successful since

the reformist environment is increasing and the help that IFIs could provide, properly framed, a very

useful technical resource for a judicial reform in Argentina.

80

Conclusions

The tendency to make national legal organizations adapt to international legal standards (Pistor, 2002)

is a phenomenon called the standardization of law. Pressures for harmonizing legal and judicial

systems can be achieved through the agency of global actors like IFIs in areas like “accounting,

auditing, bankruptcy, corporate governance, insurance regulation, and securities market

regulations”(Pistor, 2002:101). Yet, as many scholars have asserted, it is not proved that legal

uniformity will produce economic development (the East Asian countries case is stressed by authors as

Halliday, Ginsburg). That fact has not impeded the growth of the efforts to build a “global legal

architecture”. Pistor´s claim that “the new standards need to be fitted into domestic legal systems” is

particularly relevant to the case of foreign aid programs in Argentinian judicial reform.

The exigency of adequacy to local contexts is currently widespread into socio-legal

scholarship. However, blueprints are still being used by reformers. The WB exigency of “ownership”

is the translation of the same quest in IFIs terms. WB´ request of ownership is a claim for

sustainability of the programs projected by WB departments encouraging concrete and empirical

approaches instead of abstract and normative ones predominant in early LAD programs.

BPR´s theory of “the transplant effect” maintains that in legal transplants should be taken into

account domestic legal contexts in order to achieve effective reform and avoid resistance by local

actors that leads to law in the books but not in practice. BPR´s hypothesis that in legal transplants is

more important the way in which the transplant is implemented than the legal family to which the

exported law belongs is a way to focus the issue far from a normativist and abstract conception

rooted in western weberian-kelsenian-hartian conceptions and anchor the quest into the frames of

empirical speculation.

The limits to globalization imposed by inadequacies between social reality and normative

speculation shows that the process of globalization deserves more empirical enquires in order to

enhance the theoretical and pragmatic embracement in order to address the daily increasing and

challenging quests . The cases of South East Asia in which legal transplants had very little relation

with the amazing growth of the markets indicates the insufficiency of the existent paradigms of

western legal assumptions to deal with globalization.(Halliday et al, 2007a)

81

The limited attention to legal globalization (Halliday et al, 2006) by socio-legal scholarship

shows that the challenge is substantial. The existence of ideological bias and political quests in actors

and researchers should not affect the progress of socio-legal knowledge about globalization of law.

Even IFI power can be foiled by local actors with much fewer instruments and less knowledge

than international organizations and financial institutions. (Halliday et al, 2007a) The claim for more

legal adequacy to local contexts in legal transplants is another way to understand legal interactions

among peoples and, to some extent, it is directed to reach a better understanding of other cultures. To

some extent it is claiming for the respect of the other, the “alien” cultures, through the preservation of

indigenous legal conceptions and cultural diversity. Legal globalization studies should not loose the

path opened by interdisciplinary studies and perhaps in this way it will be able to avoid the chronic

limitations of normativist assumptions and theoretical rigidity that have condemned ROL programs to

failure on frequent occasions.

One of the most serious obstacles that global legal studies will face is to overcome the strong

claims made by anthropologists who conceive globalization as a new way of colonialism, a

postmodern colonialism (Silbey,1996) Nonetheless, the ubiquity of law in the global scenario

reinforces the necessity for global legal studies and a strong analytical and empirical approach is,

probably, the only way to prevail over ideological and political bias, the boundaries imposed by

nation state paradigms (Halliday et. Al, 2006), unlimited powers, and give account and provide

interpretative tools of the globalized world.

The argument of Halliday and Osinsky (2006:1) that “whatever convergences can be observed

in the globalization of law, it remains a highly contingent process” shows to some extent that

globalization is a contested process in which IFIs intervention on domestic legal systems, as in the

case of the model court reforms in Argentina, will probably face serious limits and constraints. The

demand for legal adequacy to local contexts in legal transplants that comprise the voluntary election of

the reform, a minimal “affinity between the legal systems of the exporting and importing countries”

(Halliday et al, 2006:19), and some kind of “familiarity with the principles of law” is a demand that

cannot be avoided either by exporters or importers of law if they seek to obtain successful results.

(Berkowitz et al, 2001; Halliday et al, 2006: 19)

82

The case of the Argentinian judicial reform shows that several of the elements for successful

legal change, identified by theorists of law and globalization, were lacking. Even though the

government requested the WB assistance in the reform process, the local conditions were far from the

ideal and the lack of a minimal commitment of the stakeholders to support the reform weakened the

possibilities of success of the program. Moreover, the lack of an adequate leadership of judicial

authorities made the program become anarchical, unable to overcome the logical resistances of

opposite sectors to the reform. For those anxious to preserve the status quo or to abort the reform, it

was not very difficult to find the way to deepen the prevailing negative atmosphere around the

program. The 2001 crisis deepened the chaotic situation in which the PROJUM had to be

implemented. The commitment to the program was only a commitment of some few actors and judges.

Nevertheless, there were positive results, and not only for PROJUM courts. The PROJUM

program had significant indirect effects as the impact of the reform is still spreading over the country,

mainly in the city of Buenos Aires. The replication of the Common Administrative Unit (UAC) to be

used, not only by PROJUM Courts but also by other non PROJUM Courts with Civil jurisdiction,

shows that the reform followed by the PROJUM is a necessary reform and its benefits were perceived

by non PROJUM courts that requested the use of the Common Administrative Unit (UAC). The accent

put on organizational matters, by recently created civil societies of judges, as a way to improve

judicial administration, is an indirect effect of PROJUM implementation. The growing relevance of

judicial reform as a main point of the agenda of governmental and non governmental organizations to

improve democracy and the judicial service, was reinforced, to some extent, by the PROJUM. The

proliferation of new non governmental organizations on judicial reform, the launching of judicial

reform initiatives as in many provinces, the increasing conviction of judges about the necessity of

judicial reforms to improve justice administration shows that the Model Court Reform was not very

far from the expectations of the Argentine society and, to some extent, fixed the limits of the debate

about the improvement of judicial administration. These wider reforms suggest that the enormous

amount of resources, financial and human, invested in rule of law initiatives may show its positive

results in the mid-term if they are linked to strengthening democracy and human freedom.

Ironically, therefore, PROJUM may have been a failed project. Its continuity is not guaranteed

nowadays. However, as in many cases of globalization of law, its effects may be seen in ways not

83

anticipated by reformers outside or inside Argentina. The lessons learned, either positive or negative,

will be present for a long time in the National judiciary of Argentina. Its powerful presence may well

have impacted the whole process of judicial reform in the city of Buenos Aires and from there to the

whole country.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

84

 

Annex 1.  Workflow Chart 

 

 

Source: World Bank Implementation Completion Report

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

85

 

Annex  2  ‐ New Management Model 

 

 

 

Source: World Bank Implementation Completion Report

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

86

Annex 3  ‐ Project Development. 

Source: World Bank Implementation Completion Report

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

87

 

Bibliography 

 

BERKOWITZ, D., PISTOR K., RICHARD, J.F (2001) Economic Development, Legality and the Transplant Effect. European Economic Review 47(1): 165-195.

BINDER, ALBERTO M. (2006) La Política Judicial de la Democracia Argentina -Vaivenes de la reforma judicial. Available at: http://www.cejamericas.org/doc/documentos/politicajudicial_abinder.pdf (09-03-2008)

BOOTH, WAYNE C.; COLOMB, GREGORY G. and WILLIAMS, JOSEPH. M. (1995) The Craft of Research. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. 294 p ISBN 0-226-06584-7

BURGOS, GERMÁN.(2006) El Estado de Derecho en América Latina: ¿Artífice de la Igualdad o Factor de Desigualdad? Revista Iusta, 2006, 24, pp. 141-177.

BURNELL, PETER (2007) Methods and Experiences of Evaluating Democracy Support: A Moving Frontier . In: Evaluating Democracy Support. Methods and Experiences. IDEA – SIDA 2007 ISBN: 978-91-85724-13-0. Available at: http://www.adb.org/Evaluation/documents/EvaluatingDemocracySupport.pdf (09-03-2008)

BUSCAGLIA EDGARDO & DAKOLIAS MARIA (1999) Comparative International Study of Court Performance Indicators. A Descriptive and Analytical Account. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development .World Bank. Washington D.C. USA

(1996) Judicial Reform in Latin American Courts: The Experience in Argentina and Ecuador. World Bank Technical Paper, 350, World Bank, Washington, D.C., USA.

CAROTHERS, THOMAS (2001) The Many Agendas of Rule of Law Reform in Latin America. In Rule of Law in Latin America . The International Promotion of Judicial Reforms. Pilar Domingo and Rachel Sieder (eds.). London: Institute of Latin American Studies, 2001. 176 p ISBN 1-900039-39-7

(2003) Promoting the Rule of Law Abroad. The Problem of Knowledge. Rule of Law Series. Democracy and Rule of Law Project. Number 34, January 2003. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Available at: http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/wp34.pdf (9-03-2008)

CARROLL, WILLIAM K.. (2007) Hegemony and Counter-Hegemony in a Global field, Studies in Social Justice, Vol. 1, Issue 1, 2007, pp. 36-66. ISSN 1911-4788.

CASTELLS, MANUEL (2000) The Information Age: Economy Society and Culture: The Rise of the Network Society, vol. I. 2nd. ed. Oxford: Blackwells,

COLEGIO PÚBLICO DE ABOGADOS DE LA CAPITAL FEDERAL (CPACF) (2001) Fascículo N° 14. Cuaderno de Doctrina. Artes Gráficas Candil (eds.) Bs. As. ISBN 987-98604-0-3.

DAKOLIAS, MARIA; SAID, JAVIER (1999) Judicial Reform. A Process of Change Through Pilot Courts. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The World Bank.

DESHAZO PETE; VARGAS JUAN ENRIQUE (2006) Judicial Reform in Latin America. An Assessment. Policy Papers on the Americas. Volume XVII, Study 2, September 2006. Center for Strategic and International Studies. Available at: http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/0609_latin_judicial_reform.pdf (9-03-2008)

DEZALAY, YVES and GARTH, BRYANT (2002) The Internationalization of Palace Wars: Lawyers, Economists, and the Contest to Transform Latin American States. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2002. 331 p (The Chicago Series in Law and Society) ISBN 0-226-14426-7

88

DI MAGGIO, P. and POWELL, W. (1983) The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields,” American Sociological Review, 48(2): 147-160.

DOMINGO VILLEGAS, PILAR (2005) Reflexiones sobre la Reforma Judicial en América Latina : Una Perspectiva Comparada. Workshop "El Estado de los Sistemas de Justicia en Centroamérica : Un Balance de 20 años de Reformas", Oñati IISJ=IISL, 12-13 Mayo 2005. Coordinadores: Leopoldo Díaz Moure (Salamanca) y María Luisa Ramos Rollón (Salamanca)

DOMINGO, PILAR and SIEDER, RACHEL (2001) Rule of Law in Latin America: The International Promotion of Judicial Reforms , (eds.). London. Institute of Latin American Studies, 2001, 176 p ISBN 1-900039-39-7

ELENA, SANDRA and CHAYER HECTOR (2007) Progress and Myths in the Evaluation of the Rule of Law: A Toolkit for Strengthening Democracy. In: Evaluating Democracy Support. Methods and Experiences. IDEA – SIDA 2007 ISBN: 978-91-85724-13-0. Available at: http://www.adb.org/Evaluation/documents/EvaluatingDemocracySupport.pdf (09-03-2008)

FINKEL, JODI (2004) JUDICIAL REFORM IN ARGENTINA IN THE 1990s: How Electoral Incentives Shape Institutional Change. Latin American Research Review, Vol. 39, No. 3, October 2004

FORES- NCSC (2005) Proyecto de Desarrollo de Juzgado Modelo (PROJUM)-Evaluación de los Resultados de la Implantación del Modelo de Gestión en los Juzgados Modelo Préstamo BIRF 4314 AR INFORME FINAL

GARAVANO, GERMAN CARLOS (2005) El Gobierno del Poder Judicial. Unidos por la Justicia, Sistemas Judiciales, CEJA, Año 5 Revista Sistemas Judiciales Nº 10 (2005) Available at: http://www.unidosjusticia.org.ar/archivo/GARAVANO_Gobierno_del_Poder_Judicial.pdf (09-02-2008)

GARAVANO, GERMAN CARLOS and PALMA LUIS MARÍA (2003) La Reforma Judicial y el Diálogo Argentino. Ministerio de Justicia, Seguridad y Derechos Humanos, 2003. Available at: http://www.unidosjusticia.org.ar/archivo/GARAVANO_PALMA_ReformaJudicial_Dialogo.pdf

GARCÍA LOZADA, GABRIEL (2007) El Fondo Monetario Internacional y la Promoción del Estado de Derecho en los Noventa: Condicionalidad y Estados de Excepción en Suramérica Revista: Sortuz: Oñati Journal of Emergent Socio-Legal Studies, 2007, 1, 2, pp. 20-36. Available at: http://sortuz.org/pdf/garcia.pdf (02-24-2008)

GARTH, BRYANT G. (2002) Building Strong and Independent Judiciaries Through the New Law and Development : Behind the Paradox of Consensus Programs and Perpetually Disappointing Results. American Bar Foundation: Working Paper Series, 2002, nº 2122, pp. 1-24

GESSNER VOLKMAR (2003) Legalization and the Varieties of Capitalism. Globalisation and Resistance: Law Reform in Asia since the Crisis. Christoph Antons and Volkmar Gessner (eds.), Oxford ; Portland : Hart Publishing, 2007. 316 p. (Oñati International Series in Law and Society). ISBN 978-1-84113-680-6. pp. 27-51

GIARONE DANIEL (2003) Hacia dónde va el Juzgado Modelo. La Reforma Judicial. Centro de Estudios y Formación de la Federación Judicial Argentina – CEFJA- Instituto de Estudios y Formación, Mayo de 2003 Available at: http://www.cefja.org.ar/Giarone%20-%20%20PROJUM.%20May03.pdf (09-02-2008)

GINSBURG, TOM (2000) Does Law Matter for Economic Development? Evidence from East Asia. Law and Society Review, 34(3): 829-856

GIRALDO ANGEL, JAIME; GIRALDO L., MÓNICA; GIRALDO L. ALEJANDRO (2002) Metodología y Técnica de la Investigación Sociojurídica. - 2ª edición Bogotá: Ediciones Librería del Profesional, 2002. 168 p

89

GÓMEZ ISA, FELIPE (1999) El Derecho al Desarrollo como Derecho Humano en el Ámbito Jurídico Internacional. Bilbao : Universidad de Deusto, 1999. 339 p (Derechos Humanos ; 3) ISBN 84-7485-599-3

GREENBERG, DAVID F. (1992) Law and Development in Light of Dependency Theory. Law and Development. Edited by Anthony Carty. -- Aldershot ; Hong Kong ; Singapore : Dartmouth, 1992. 506 p. (The International Library of Essays in Law and Legal Theory. Legal Cultures ; 2). ISBN 1-85521-199-8. pp 89-119

GRUGEL JEAN; RIGGIROZZI MARÍA PÍA (2007) The Return of the State in Argentina. International Affairs, Vol. 83, No. 1, 87-107

HALLIDAY TERENCE & OSINSKY PAVEL. (2006) Globalization of Law. Annual Review of Sociology. 50 p.

HALLIDAY TERENCE C. & CARRUTHERS BRUCE G (2007a) Foiling the Financial Hegemons: Limits to the Globalisation of Corporate Insolvency Regimes in Indonesia, Korea and China. Globalisation and Resistance : Law Reform in Asia since the Crisis. Christoph Antons and Volkmar Gessner (eds.). Oxford ; Portland : Hart Publishing, 2007, 316 p. -- (Oñati International Series in Law and Society). ISBN 978-1-84113-680-6. pp. 255-301

(2007 b) “The Recursivity of Law: Global Norm-Making and National Law-Making in the Globalization of Corporate Bankruptcy Law.” American Journal of Sociology, 2007, 112, 4, pp. 1135-1202

HAMMERGREN, LINN (2002) Assessments, Monitoring, Evaluation, and Research: Improving the Knowledge Base for Judicial Reform Programs, 2002. Available at: www.pogar.org/publications/judiciary/linn1/evaluation.html#foot10 (09-02-2008)

(2005) Apuntes para Avanzar en el Debate sobre Cómo Mejorar el Gobierno Judicial. Ceja, Revista Sistemas Judiciales, N° 10 Gobierno Judicial, Año 5 (2005) Available at: http://www.cejamericas.org/sistemas-judiciales/index.html (09-02-2008)

HIGHTON, ELENA (1995) Judicial Reform in Argentina. Judicial Reform in Latin America and the Caribbean : Proceedings of a World Bank Conference. Edited by Malcolm Rowat, Waleed H. Malik, Maria Dakolias. Washington: The World Bank, 1995, 233 p. (World Bank Technical Paper ; 280). Chapter 25. ISBN 0-8213-3206-6. pp. 176-183

LICHTMAJER, MOISES (2005) Proyecto de Desarrollo de Juzgado Modelo. Convenio Préstamo BIRF N° 4314-AR. Proyecto ARG/99/006. Resumen Ejecutivo. Revisión de Cartera. Buenos Aires , 20 de Julio de 2005.

LYNCH, HORACIO M. (2004) Las Designaciones de Jueces en Argentina (Los concursos del Consejo de la Magistratura y cuestiones vinculadas). FORES. Available at : http://www.cejamericas.org/doc/documentos/designacionesdejuecesenargentina.pdf (09-02-2008)

MERRY SALLY (2006) Globalization and International Law. Annual Review of Anthropology. 2006, 35, 99-106

MERRYMAN, JOHN HENRY (1975) Comparative Law and Social Change: On the Origins, Style, Decline and Revival of the Law and Development Movement. American Journal of International Law 25:457-491 (1975)

NELKEN DAVID (2001) Towards a Sociology of Legal Adaptation. In: Adapting Legal Cultures. David Nelken and Johannes Feest eds. Oxford: Hart Publishing. 2001.

NORTH, DOUGLAS C. (1990) Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance - Cambridge; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1990. , 152 p (The Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions) ISBN 0-521-39416-3

90

ORLANSKY DORA (2006) El Concepto de Desarrollo y las Reformas Estatales: Visiones de los Noventa . Revista Documentos y Aportes / FCE-UNL Número 6 2006. Available at: http://www.iigg.fsoc.uba.ar/sepure/Publicaciones/Orlansky%20(2005)%20El%20Concepto%20de%20Desarrollo%20y%20las%20Reformas%20Estatales.pdf (09-02-2008)

PISTOR, KATHARINA (2002) The Standardization of Law and its Effect on Developing Economies. American Journal of Comparative Law 50: 97-130

PISTOR, KATHARINA AND WELLONS PHILIP A. (1999) The Role of Law and Legal Institutions in Asian Economic Development: 1960-1995. New York Oxford University Press. Chap 8 pp. 263-286.

RAMIREZ LLERENA, Elizabeth (2001) La investigación socio-jurídica : Aproximaciones críticas. Bogotá : Ediciones Doctrina y Ley Ltda., 2001, 392 p. ISBN 958-676-090-1

REVISTA CUMBRE JUDICIAL IBEROAMERICANA (2008) Número 3 – Segundo trimestre de 2008. Available at: http://www.cumbrejudicial.org/cumbrejudicial/docsuno/boletines/BoletinCumbre03.pdf (9-03-2008)

RIGGIROZZI , MARÍA PIA (2006) Knowledge Producers, Knowledge Users and the World Bank: Research-Policy Dynamics in Argentina’s Judicial Reform. Estudios sobre la Administracion de Justicia (FORES), Vol. 4, No.4,43-60.

(2007 )World Bank as a Norm-Broker and as Conveyor of Knowledge and Funds in Argentina’s Governance Reforms’, in Stone D., and Wright C. (eds.) The World Bank and Governance. Routledge/ CSGR Series in Globalization and Regionalisation 207-227.

RODRIGUEZ GARAVITO, CESAR (2006) Globalización, Reforma Judicial y Estado de Derecho en Colombia y América Latina : El regreso de los Programas de Derecho y Desarrollo. Revista Iusta, 2006, 24, pp. 179-216.

RODRIK, DANI (2000) Institutions for High-Quality Growth: What They Are and How to Acquire Them. Studies in Comparative International Development 35 (3), 3-31.

ROWAT, MALCOLM (1995). Judicial Reform in Latin American and the Caribbean: Operational Implications for the Bank . Judicial Reform in Latin America and the Caribbean : Proceedings of a World Bank Conference. Edited by Malcolm Rowat, Waleed H. Malik, Maria Dakolias. -- Washington : The World Bank, 1995, 233 p. -- (World Bank Technical Paper ; 280). Chapter 3. ISBN 0-8213-3206-6. -- pp. 16-18

SALACUSE, JESWALD W (2000). “From Developing Countries to Emerging Markets: The Legal Challenges of Economic Change,” International and Comparative Corporate Law Journal 2(3): 277-295.

SALAS LUIS (2001) From Law and Development to Rule of Law: New and Old Issues in Justice Reform in Latin America. In: Rule of Law in Latin America: The International Promotion of Judicial Reforms. Pilar Domingo and Rachel Sieder (eds.). London: Institute of Latin American Studies, 2001, 176 p ISBN 1-900039-39-7

SANTOS, BOAVENTURA DE SOUSA ( 2000) Law and Democracy: (Mis)trusting the Global Reform of Courts. In Globalizing Institutions: Case Studies in Regulation and Innovation. In J Jenson, B De Sousa Santos, pp. 253-84. Aldershot: Ashgate

SARLES, MARGARET J (2007) Evaluating the Impact and Effectiveness of USAID’s Democracy and Governance Programmes. Evaluating Democracy Support. Methods and Experiences. International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance and Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency 2007 ISBN: 978-91-85724-13-0. Available at: http://www.adb.org/Evaluation/documents/EvaluatingDemocracySupport.pdf (09-02-2008)

SHIHATA, IBRAHIM F. I. (1995 a) Judicial Reform in Developing Countries and the Role of the World Bank. Judicial Reform in Latin America and the Caribbean : Proceedings of a World Bank Conference /

91

Edited by Malcolm Rowat, Waleed H. Malik, Maria Dakolias. -- Washington : The World Bank, 1995. 233 p. (World Bank Technical Paper ; 280). -Chapter 32. ISBN 0-8213-3206-6.-pp.219-233

(1995 b) Legal Framework for Development: The World Bank's Role in Legal and Judicial Reform . Judicial Reform in Latin America and the Caribbean : Proceedings of a World Bank Conference / Edited by Malcolm Rowat, Waleed H. Malik, Maria Dakolias. Washington : The World Bank, 1995. 233 p. (World Bank Technical Paper ; 280). Chapter 2. ISBN 0-8213-3206-6. pp. 13-15

SILBEY, SUSAN S.(1996) Let Them Eat Cake. Globalization, Postmodern Colonialism, and the Possibilities of Justice. Law & Society Review. Volume 31. Number 2. The Law and Society Association.

SLAUGHTER ANNE-MARIE (2004) A New World Order. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. 341 p ISBN 0-691-11698-9

SWEET, ALEC STONE (2000) Governing with Judges : Constitutional Politics in Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. 232 p ISBN 0-19-829771-8

TAMANAHA, BRIAN Z. (1995). The Lessons of Law-and-Development Studies. The American Journal of International Law 89: 470-86.

(1993)The Folly of the "Social Scientific" Concept of Legal Pluralism . Journal of Law and Society. 1993, 20, 2, pp. 192-217

(2008) The Dark Side of the Relationship between the Rule of Law and Liberalism. NYU Journal of Law and Liberty, Vol. 33, 2008 St. John's Legal Studies Research Paper No. 08-0096 Available at : http://ssrn.com/abstract=1087023 (09-02-2008)

TRUBEK DAVID M.(2006) The Rule of Law in Development Assistance: Past, Present and Future. The New Law and Economic Development : A Critical Appraisal. David M. Trubek and Alvaro Santos (eds.). -- Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2006. 309 p, ISBN 0-521-67757-2

TRUBEK, DAVID M.; GALANTER, MARC (1974) Scholars in Self-Estrangement : Some Reflexions on the Crisis in Law and Development Studies in the United States. Wisconsin Law Review, 1974, pp. 1062-1102

WILLIAMSON, JOHN. (1999) What Should the Bank Think about the Washington Consensus? Peterson Institute for International Economics. Paper prepared as a background to the World Bank's World Development Report 2000 Available at: http://www.iie.com/publications/papers/paper.cfm?ResearchID=351

WORLD BANK (1998) Project Appraisal Document. Model Court Development Project. Report No 17459-AR. PREM and Argentina, Chile, Uruguay Country. Managing Unit. Unpublished document. March, 4. Washington D.C.:The World Bank.

(2001) Argentina. Legal and Judicial Sector Assessment. Legal Vice Presidency. Washington D.C.: The World Bank.

(2006) Implementation Completion Report. (SCL-43140) Document of the World Bank ON A LOAN IN THE AMOUNT OF US$5 MILLION TO THE REPUBLIC OF ARGENTINA FOR A MODEL COURT DEVELOPMENT PROJECT. March 15, 2006

ZAGARIS, BRUCE (1992) Law and Development or Comparative Law and Social Change : The Application of Old Concepts in the Commonwealth Caribbean / Law and Development / Edited by Anthony Carty. Aldershot ; Hong Kong ; Singapore : Dartmouth, 1992, 506 p. -- (The International Library of Essays in Law and Legal Theory. Legal Cultures ; 2). ISBN 1-85521-199-8. pp 121-165

 

92

 

E‐Journals, Newspapers, Internet Sites 

World Bank

Model Court Development Project

http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/main?pagePK=64193027&piPK=64187937&theSitePK=523679&menuPK=64187510&searchMenuPK=64187283&theSitePK=523679&entityID=000112742_20060724121459&searchMenuPK=64187283&theSitePK=523679 (09-10-2008)

Documents and Reports

http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/main?pagePK=64187835&piPK=64187936&theSitePK=523679&menuPK=64187283&query=judicial%20argentina&fromDate=&docType=0&toDate=&IRISF=&displayOrder=DOCNA,DOCDT,REPNB,DOCTY&callBack=&siteName=WDS&sType=2&report=&loan=&trustfund=&projid=&credit=&sourceCitation=&sortDesc=DOCDT&dAtts=DOCDT,DOCNA,DOCTY,SECCL,LANG,REPNB,VOLNB,REPNME&startPoint=0&pageSize=50 (09-10-2008)

Diario Judicial

http://www.diariojudicial.com.ar/nota.asp?IDNoticia=2571 (08-04-2008)

http://www.diariojudicial.com/nota.asp?IDNoticia=26255 (04-09-2008)

CEJA –JSCA Centro de Estudios de Justicia de las Americas- Justice Studies Center of the Americas

http://www.cejamericas.org/reporte/muestra_pais.php?idioma=espanol&pais=ARGENTIN&tipreport=REPORTE2&seccion=PROYREFO (04-09-2008)

Consejero Beinusz Szmukler

http://www.consejero-szmukler.com.ar/ (04-09-2008)

Asociación por los Derechos Civiles

http://www.adc.org.ar (08-04-2008)

Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales

http://www.cels.org.ar (08-04-2008)

Fundación Ambiente y Recursos Naturales

http://www.farn.org.ar/ (08-04-2008)

Instituto de Estudios Comparados en Ciencias Penales y Sociales(INECIP)

http://www.inecip.org/ (08-04-2008)

Poder Ciudadano

http://www.poderciudadano.org (08-04-2008)

Cumbre Judicial Iberoamericana

93

http://www.cumbrejudicial.org/eversuite/GetRecords?Template=default&app=cumbres (08-24-2008)

Colegio Público de Abogados de la Capital Federal (CPACF)

www.cpacf.org.ar (08-04-2008)

Consejo de la Magistratura

The Resolution 94/08 is available at:

http://www.pjn.gov.ar/Publicaciones/00010/00020577.Pdf (09-15-2008)

Poder Judicial de la Nación Argentina

http://www.pjn.gov.ar/Publicaciones/fijo/Plan%20de%20Gestion%20Judicial.pdf (04-09-2008)

http://www.pjn.gov.ar/Publicaciones/fijo/Plan%20Informatizacion%20judicial.pdf (04-09-2008)

Reforma Judicial

www.reformajudicial.jus.gov.ar (Not more available at 09-09-2008)