Judicial Professionals Research Articles

Linking Organizational Justice and Psychological Conditions to Chinese Judges’ Turnover Intention

In recent years, more and more Chinese judges have resigned from courts, making the judicial profession less attractive. Many reasons shape judges’ turnover intention, with organizational justice being one of the potentially important yet overlooked contributing factors. Based on survey data collected from 458 judges in a northern Chinese province, this study tests a theoretical framework linking supervisor, peer, and litigant justice directly to judges’ intention to resign and indirectly through occupational stress and satisfaction. Structural equation modeling (SEM) results indicate that supervisor and litigant justice are directly related to lower turnover intention, but peer justice is connected to higher turnover intention among Chinese judges. The association between supervisor justice and judges’ turnover intention is also mediated by occupational stress and job satisfaction, while the relationships between peer and litigant justice and judges’ turnover intention are mainly mediated by job satisfaction. In addition, seasoned and female judges have lower turnover intention.

Judicial Populism and Corruption Prosecutions in the Mani Pulite Operation

Abstract I provide a new analytical framework to understand the effectiveness of corruption prosecutions in the so-called Mani Pulite (Clean Hands) operation by showing how this operation was rooted in a populist interpretation of criminal rules and criminal procedure. The Clean Hands operation represented a successful breakthrough against the vast and complex corruption system that had sustained Italian politics for decades. I show that prosecutors in the Clean Hands operation interpreted legal rules through the lens of a deep-seated hostility between a vague conglomerate of “corrupt elites” and “virtuous citizens.” This populist interpretation of criminal and procedural rules introduced significant legal innovations that empowered judicial actors against systemic corruption by creating unprecedented incentives for defendants to cooperate with legal authorities. Consequently, the judicial professionals leading the Clean Hands operation also felt the need to shield themselves against retaliation for the use of these novel approaches to corruption prosecution by bringing their fight before the court of public opinion. To this end, the Clean Hands prosecutors made use of targeted media interventions to rally public support around their investigation and protect their work from political interference.

What's emotion got to do with it? Reflections on the buildings of the Portuguese (Family) Courts.

Courthouses, as public edifices, serve as the physical backdrop for the administration of justice. Simultaneously, they are spaces inhabited and visited by a diverse array of court users, ranging from judicial professionals to litigants. This article explores the nuanced interplay between courthouse spaces and the emotional experiences they generate. It starts by surveying existing studies that examine such an intricate relationship. Then, and by drawing from a sample of interviews conducted across two distinct time periods (2010-2011 and 2017-2019) in Portugal, the article delves into the lived experiences of judges, prosecutors, and litigants. Their narratives provide a multifaceted view of the emotional experiences associated with the Portuguese (Family) Court buildings. To analyse these experiences, I turn to Henri Lefebvre's concept of lived space. Lived space refers to the emotions, memories, and interactions within a particular spatial context. Such dimension, in relation to courthouses, directly connects to the lived experience of legitimacy loss and low self-esteem affecting decision-making, on the one hand, and estrangement and rights' exclusion, on the other hand, felt by those subjects. By investigating how the spatial configurations of courthouses shape our emotions, we gain insights into the profound impact of such built environments on our understanding of the justice system, and the physical and symbolic obstacles in accessing it.

Barriers to the Advancement of Women Judges in the Judicial Profession in Spain

Despite women being the majority in the Spanish judiciary, they rarely hold the most powerful positions. The aim of this work is to explore why Spanish women judges fail to occupy such positions. To this end, a cross-sectional, exploratory study with a qualitative design was carried out. Specifically, 29 semi-structured interviews were conducted with judges working in the judiciary in Spain, 11 men and 18 women. Almost all those interviewed asserted that access to the judicial profession is the same for men and women, but not all of the respondents believed that there were equal opportunities for promotion. The opinions and perceptions of both the male and female judges evidence that the gender dynamics in the judicial system hinder the ascension of women in the judiciary. Moreover, gender blindness conceals such dynamics and complicates the proposal of corrective measures.

Формирование профессиональной судейской корпорации в России (XVIII–XXI вв.)

The article introduces a comprehensive analysis of professional judicial corporation in Russia in the XVIII–XXI centuries in its theoretical and historical aspects. The research objective was to clarify the concept and categories of judicial power, as well as to model the process of its development in Russia. The issue of professions and professional corporations as social phenomena is a matter of sociology. For lawyers, sociological studies are important in connection with the issue of judicial corporation development, i.e., its theoretical and historical development. The author relied on the structural and functional approach to the professionalization model developed by sociologist G. Vilensky, who interpreted the categories of judicial profession, judiciary, and judicial corporation. The authors revealed the directions in the development of the professional judicial corporation in Russia in the XVIII–XXI centuries and periodized this process. A separate and permanent judicial function determined the emergence of professional judiciary, organizationally represented by a professional judicial corporation. The profession of a judge is all these elements combined. The judicial corporation developed in Russia in three directions, i.e., normative, organizational, and symbolic, with a prominent regulatory influence of the state. The judicial profession and professional corporation started to develop in Russia during the judicial reforms in the XVIII century. This slow, nonlinear, and discrete process was completed as late as in the XXI century with all the necessary stages of professionalization: the professional corporation finally became the organization form of the Russian judiciary. The authors revealed five stages in the history of the professional judicial corporation in Russia: 1) XVIII century; 2) the first half of the XIX century; 3) 1864–1917; 4) 1917–1989; 5) 1989 – early XXI century.

Towards an efficient judiciary in Moldova: Lessons from EU reform initiatives

This study explores the multifaceted challenges impeding the functionality of Moldova’s judicial system, emphasizing the necessity of comprehensive reform measures. By conducting a qualitative analysis of European Union judicial reforms, this research aims to identify effective strategies that could be adapted to the Moldovan context. Key areas of focus include the development of sustainable financing models, enhancement of training programs for judicial professionals, and the integration of digital technologies into judicial processes. The paper proposes a set of reforms tailored to Moldova’s unique socioeconomic and cultural landscape, with the goal of improving judicial efficiency, transparency, and adaptability. Through this analysis, the paper contributes to the broader discourse on judicial reform in transitional countries, offering insights into the potential for systemic improvements within Moldova’s judiciary.

Independence of judges as a constitutional principle and deontological basis of the judicial profession

A permanent condition for the justice and effectiveness of the domestic judiciary composes the observance of the constitutional principles of its implementation, mainly the principle of independence, both in the aspect of the judicial system and in relation to the legal profession. The principle of independence of judges should be considered as a mega-principle that has its demonstration in legal, ideological, economic, social, and other aspects. It is through the prism of the first two of the notable ones that the work examines the principle of independence. Having analyzed the legislative regulation and scientific approaches to the disclosure of the principle of independence, its dual nature is reasoned, the content of which is revealed through such a status of judges and the state of the judiciary as a whole, which provides for the implementation of judicial activity without any illegal influence, pressure or interference, but guided by the rule of law. It has been proven that the submission of judges to the rule of law acts as an additional guarantee of their independence and a reasonable limitation aimed at avoiding lawlessness and arbitrariness. Having revealed the meaning of the constitutional principle of independence of judges, the publication draws attention to the deontological principles of judicial activity, it is substantiated that the internal imperatives of judicial ethics, the basis of which is the demand for independence, determine the main vectors of building relations between the judge and other participants in the judiciary, ensure his resistance to various temptations to depart from impartiality in the case in their own interests or the interests of other subjects. It has been proven that internal independence is an individual duty of each judge, which comes from the moral and ethical qualities of a specific person and forms necessary potential for the effectiveness of his activity. After analyzing the legal regulation, including the principles of moral culture of judges at the level of the Constitution, a conclusion was formulated regarding the need for legislative consolidation of the fundamental moral qualities of a candidate for the position of judge and their main characteristics, as well as the development of clear methods of their verification for the proper formation of the judicial corps and the effective implementation of the judiciary.

Prosecuting cases of abusive head trauma in Switzerland: a descriptive study of the impact of medical documentation and delay of reporting on judicial outcome

Abusive head trauma (AHT) is a criminal offence that is prosecuted ex officio, following report to the police from physicians or child protection services. The aim of this study was to assess whether the judicial outcome (dismissal vs indictment) was influenced by the quality of the medical documentation and/or the time span between AHT diagnosis and reporting child abuse to the police. The cohort was divided in two groups: 13/23 dismissals (57%) and 10/23 indictments (43%). The diagnostic probability of the AHT cases was certain for both groups. Nonetheless, in fraction of dismissed cases, alternative explanations for the observed lesions seemed plausible to the public prosecutor. Legal files of only 3/12 dismissed cases had a forensic report, while 6/10 cases that were indicted included a forensic report. Further, the legal file of several dismissed cases entirely lacked medical documentation (3/12), which was not the cases for indicted cases. The period between AHT diagnosis and reporting to the police was not different for dismissals (29 ± 19 days) and indictments (7 ± 4 days) (p = 0.32). Physicians filed reports more rapidly (6 ± 1 days) compared to childhood protection service (70 ± 46 days) (p = 0.01) and that may increase the rate of indictments (9/18) compared to reporting via the childhood protection service (1/5). Despite diagnostic certainty, other causes for the lesions were considered as plausible alternative explanations to judicial professionals in several dismissed cases. These seemed to have less medical documentation and forensic evaluations. In addition, more rapid reporting to the police by physicians seems to increase the likelihood of indictments.

Looking at the other side: working conditions in Portuguese courts

Abstract QUALIS is a research project that studies ‘the other side of courts’ by looking at the working conditions of judicial professions in Portugal and their impacts on the profession, health, family and personal life. The objective of this article is to provide an overview of the results obtained, based mainly on the interviews and the online questionnaire administered to the Portuguese judicial professions (judges, public prosecutors and court clerks). The questionnaire was sent to all professionals (more than 10,000) working in the courts and had a good response rate; the interviews were conducted among the three judicial professions. The article focuses on three main dimensions of working conditions, namely physical environment, working time and work intensity, and work/social environment of professionals working at first instance courts. It will make then a further analysis of their impacts in the health and well-being and in the work-family conflict of the judicial professionals.

Problematika Pelaksanaan Etika Profesi Hakim Dalam Dunia Peradilan

The legal profession is one of the professions that requires its members to fulfill moral values. The main criterion for being an organizer of the legal profession in upholding the law lies in the independence of professional organizers and the strength of moral integrity in facing various problems under their responsibility. To be a good organizer of the legal profession in carrying out its professional duties in upholding the law requires practitioners who have qualifications of attitude, humanitarian attitude, attitude of justice, able to see and place objective values in a case handled, honest attitude, and have technical skills and ethical maturity. the code of ethics of the legal profession actually functions as an ethical controller for those who carry out the legal profession. According to the ethics of the legal profession, legal professionals are expected to possess certain critical individual abilities. The judge, as the main element of the judiciary, places his profession as the representative of God, because the judge's task is to determine law and justice in society, so the responsibility he carries is very heavy but noble. Therefore, with such great power given to the judicial profession, judges are required to have a balanced attitude, full of responsibility to their conscience and ethical values toward their profession. However, when we look at the current reality, there are many problems that arise. There are many cases of judges violating the code of ethics.

Introduction. Empirical research with judicial professionals and courts: Methods and practices

The articles in this special issue focus on the methodological and practical challenges of undertaking empirical research in judicial and/or court settings. They arose from a workshop at the International Institute for the Sociology of Law held on 23-24 June 2022 which discussed the empirical strategies to access and conduct research with judicial officers and the research methods and kinds of data used, including interviews, surveys, court observations, administrative data, documents, and photographs. The articles draw on the experiences of socio-legal researchers within the field, address the importance of linkages with the justice system and discuss a range of socio-legal insights, methodological approaches and methods from disciplines such as anthropology, law, political science, psychology and sociology.

Problematic issues of the public integrity council under martial law

Purpose. formulate the author's own approaches to understanding the legal basis for the functioning and mechanism of the Public Integrity Council in the context of judicial reform with a view to the effective administration of justice. Methodology. The methodology includes a comprehensive analysis and a synthesis of available scientific and theoretical information. It is includes the formulation of relevant conclusions and recommendations. Such methods of scientific knowledge were used: terminological, logical-semantic, functional, systemic-structural, logical-normative. Results. The study recognized that the prestige of the judicial profession is crucial for the functioning of this professional group value, as it contributes to a universal sense of social justice and affirms the sense of the legal institutions as a whole. At the same time, a judge who enjoys prestige is better able to do good, so caring about building his or her prestige is one of the ways in which the profession is ethically good, and thus a moral obligation of every judge. The prestige of the profession is a public good, the entire judiciary is working on its content, a judge can use the authority developed by colleagues, but also miss it, destroying the work of entire generations. Originality. The study found that the judge's professional activity is focused on justice, the judge implements the law, which is related to justice and it must be fair, it is difficult to disagree with the thesis that it works for the greater good. Justice, however, is a good thing that a judge's full concern does not require twofold actions: first, careful and responsible performance of all tasks, which aim to establish and maintain justice, and second, constant building and maintaining the prestige of the profession itself. Practical significance. The results of the study can be used to develop provisions, conclusions and recommendations on the state judicial policy in the field of administration of justice, to improve the level of relevant state decision-making in this area, and also to further improve legislation in the field of the judiciary.

Challenges in the Implementation of Judges' Professional Ethics and Conflicts of Interest that Affect Integrity

The judicial profession is a profession that has a very important role in carrying out the law enforcement process. To enforce the law, a judge is required to make a decision that will be the settlement of a case that occurs. In its implementation, the judge upholds the code of ethics that is owned to carry out a fair and correct judicial power. The implementation of professional ethics as a judge is certainly faced with many challenges. Not a few members of the judges are unsteady in upholding the code of ethics that should be followed. Integrity is needed so that there is no violation of the code of ethics.

Formation of modern regional judiciary in Russia: a case study of courts of general jurisdiction of Novosibirsk Oblast

This study outlines results of the study on regional judiciary conducted in the Novosibirsk Oblast and summarizes analysis on its socio-demographic and professional composition and sources of formation. The study is interdisciplinary in nature; sociological (questionnaires and in-depth interviews) and legal research methods (historical and legal, formal legal, comparative legal) have been applied, 192 judges of courts of general jurisdiction of the Novosibirsk Oblast have been interviewed during the research. The analysis of the outcome of the study shows that a modern regional judge is a young woman who received a full-time legal education at a classical university and has a predominant professional experience in court. The study acknowledges further rejuvenation and feminization of the regional judiciary, due to specifics of personnel policy. The dominant source of replenishment of the regional corps of judges is the court apparatus; this method is most significant for the formation of justices of the peace (JPs) and judges of district courts. The main reasons for the predominance of representatives from the court apparatus in the judiciary corps are the scope of work and requirements for the professional qualities of a judge, among which adaptability to high workloads, significant amount of paperwork, control over procedural deadlines, and effective compliance with the key indicators of the judge’s work form the core. We believe that the trend to form the judiciary mainly through internal sources may negatively affect the authority and status of the judicial profession.

Judicial self-government in Ukraine

This article is devoted to the study of judges in Ukraine, the order of their employment in administrative positions. Being a judge of the relevant court is not only a profession, it is an observance of the rules of conduct that must be observed every day both in one’s work and in one’s personal life. The judicial profession differs from other professions, a judge must be guided only by procedural law. Also, when administering justice, a judge cannot depend on the legislative and executive bodies as a whole. It will be appropriate to consider the issue of a judge in an administrative position. And determine their order of appointment to the relevant position in the court. Today, the issue of judges in administrative positions is very extensive and requires additional research. The draft law “On restoring trust in the judicial system of Ukraine” was developed with the aim of ensuring the implementation of guarantees of the independence of judges, as well as reducing illegal influence on judges who hold administrative positions, the relevant courts, restoring trust in society, as well as in the judiciary. Therefore, the achievement of the goal is proposed through the adoption of the specified law. It provides for the term of holding an administrative position in the courts of cassation up to three years, and also establishes restrictions on the possibility of the same person occupying the position of the head of the court for two consecutive terms. But the main Law of Ukraine for regulating the appointment of judges to administrative positions is the Law of Ukraine “On the Judiciary and the Status of Judges”, which regulates issues related to all judges. Well, let’s summarize the above-mentioned law, which entered into force on March 28, 2015. Part 4 of Article 20 of Law No. 2453, as amended by Law No. 192, stipulates that a judge elected to an administrative position in the manner specified by this article cannot hold one administrative position of the corresponding court for more than two terms in a row. In connection with the adoption of this draft law, on January 4, 2023, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine registered an alternative draft law 8296-1 on the election of court presidents, in which it is proposed to provide for the possibility of early dismissal of the court president from office by the Council of Judges of Ukraine, in case of non-compliance with the restrictions on holding the office the chairman of the court is a judge who has already been elected for more than two terms in a row. This Draft Law proposes that judges of all courts of the country (from local courts to the High Anti-Corruption Court and Cassation Courts as part of the Supreme Court) elect presidents and deputy presidents of courts for a period of 4 years, but only the head of the Supreme Court will personally approve them. Key words: state, judge, procedure for appointing judges, administrative position, judicial power, justice, legal status of judges.

Improving colloquial case legal judgment prediction via abstractive text summarization

Most studies on Legal Judgment Prediction (LJP) use court verdicts or indictments as the training data source. Such models could assist judicial professionals who can use legal jargon to efficiently predict sentences. However, for ordinary and non-professional users, who can only provide a vague and incomplete description of the situation due to the lack of legal background, the predictive ability of the model will be greatly limited. To address this issue, we propose a colloquial case-based LJP framework called PekoNet, which incorporates Abstractive Text Summarization (ATS) into training for the LJP task to improve prediction accuracy for colloquial case description. We considered two approaches: independent training and joint training. The former train two separate model independently, while the latter jointly train both the ATS and LJP modules with either ATS-Freezing or ATS-Finetuning. The performance of these models is evaluated on two automated summarized testing datasets - BART and ChatGPT as well as human-provided case summaries. The results of the experiments demonstrate that the models developed with PekoNet outperform the typical LJP model for colloquial case description by up to 3.6%-10.8%.

Взаимодействие между судебной системой и политическими процессами: анализ влияния политических факторов на профессиональную подготовку специалистов

The interaction between the judiciary and political processes has many dimensions, such as the appointment of judges, political attitudes, the training of judicial professionals, support for their professional development, the influence of political forces and groups on judicial processes and the enforcement of judicial decisions. Examining these linkages allows for a better understanding of the complexity and dynamics of the relationship between the judiciary and the political sphere, as well as identifying possible challenges and problems faced by professionals in the judiciary. The article analyzes the mechanisms by which political processes affect the professional training and development of judicial professionals, such as political appointments, legislative changes, public policy, funding, and other factors. Examples of the impact of political factors on the judiciary are given, highlighting negative and positive aspects. The authors emphasize the importance of maintaining the independence, objectivity and competence of judicial training and the need to continuously monitor and respond to changes in the political environment.

Judicial Corruption as a Violation of Professional Ethics

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to present some ethical issues facing the Indonesian judiciary by exploring the usefulness of judicial codes of ethics. The ethical crisis of judges occurred at a time when judicial independence was strong post the amendment of the 1945 Constitution. The judicial crises triggered uncertainty and pessimism about judicial accountability Theoretical framework: Legal literature states that fair, honest, and impartial legal processes cannot be separated from that of ​​an independent judiciary [Shugermann, 2010: 1061]. The independence and impartiality of the court as one of the ten minimum conditions for creating a constitutional society. Design/methodology/approach: In this study, the author conducted normative legal research. This method helps examine the juridical standards contained in laws and court decisions. Furthermore, library research was conducted to obtain data from primary, secondary, and tertiary legal materials. Findings: Despite the judiciary gaining strong independence following the amendments of the 1945 Constitution in 2001–2002, unfortunately, the judiciary suffers from an accountability crisis, as seen through the arrests of several judges for bribery. Research, Practical & Social implications: We hope that this research can bring awareness and increase adherence to the code of ethics of the judicial profession. Originality/value: It is hoped that the ideas and issues raised in this paper will help the judiciary recognize the importance of developing, maintaining, and, most importantly, honouring a code of ethics in keeping with the ethical obligations of the judicial office.

‘Offending doesn't happen in a vacuum’: The backgrounds and experiences of children under the age of 14 years who offend

Relative to those who first offend in adolescence, younger children who offend are at increased risk of engaging in serious, persistent, and violent offending. In addition, these children are at risk of a range of adverse psychosocial outcomes across the lifespan. Early intervention with children at risk of offending is therefore critical to support children to thrive and reduce offending and victimisation rates. This study sought to explore the backgrounds and experiences of children who offend prior to the age of 14 years to shed light on the development of child offending and assist early intervention efforts. Interviews with family members (with lived experience of interacting with the child welfare and child offending system) and frontline child welfare and judicial professionals (who directly engage with children who offend) ( n = 33) were conducted. Their experiences show that children who offend have clear, significant, and unaddressed child welfare concerns, including growing up in poverty and experiencing abuse, which cumulatively impacts on children's normative development and can eventually culminate in offending. Participants called for urgent action to address the sociostructural concerns that underlie child welfare concerns and provide prompt and effective assistance to families in need to support children to thrive and prevent future victimisation.

Augmented and challenging datasets with multi-step reasoning and multi-span questions for Chinese judicial reading comprehension

The existing judicial reading comprehension datasets are relatively simple, and the answers to the questions can be obtained through single-step reasoning. However, the content of legal documents in actual scenarios is complex, making it problematic to infer correct results merely by single-step reasoning. To solve this type of issue, we promote the difficulties of questions included in Chinese Judicial Reading Comprehension (CJRC) dataset and propose two augmented versions, CJRC2.0 and CJRC3.0. These datasets are derived from Chinese judicial judgment documents in different fields and annotated by judicial professionals. Compared to CJRC, there are more types of judgment documents in the two datasets, and the questions become are more challenging to answer. For CJRC2.0, we only preserve complex questions that require to be solved by multi-step reasoning. Besides, we provide additional supporting facts to the answers. For CJRC3.0, we introduce a new question type, the multi-span question, which should be answered by extracting and combining multiple spans in the documents. We implement two powerful baselines to evaluate the difficulty of our proposed datasets. Our proposed datasets fill gaps in the field of explainable legal machine reading comprehension.