The Effect of Pivotal Efficiency Management on Criminal Proceedings

Abstract

During last decades, the managerialism model has predominated to solve structural and managerial problems in public service organizations. The Iranian judiciary has used some components of this model for years to solve the problem of lack of resources and vast number of cases. Since judges are the main actors of managerialism in criminal proceedings and this area, like all social fields, is based on a mental semantic system, so identifying the set of conditions, strategies and consequences of adopting strategies in it requires the application of the qualitative methodological method. Considering these requirements and based on the grounded theory, the present article investigated and analyzed the grounded rules of managerialism in criminal proceedings through interviews with judges of Kerman’s criminal branches. The analysis of data showed that according to all interviewees, the officials of the criminal justice system have set efficiency-based managerialism in order to solve the problem of high volume of cases, while this policy has reduced the accuracy of trials, increased judicial errors, reduced judge resilience, made judges stressful and stayed away from scientific studies. Therefore, it may conclude that judgment has moved away from its original meaning and has undergone a fundamental transformation (metamorphosis).