Vol. 4, n. 5 (2014): Evaluating Judicial Performance

(Special issue)

Issue edited by Francesco Contini (National Research Council of Italy), Sharyn Roach Anleu (Flinders University) and David Rottman (National Center for State Courts).

The articles in this issue tackle the conceptual issues associated with defining good judging and the purposes of evaluating judges, and ask such questions as: What values are central to the judicial role? What knowledge, skills, abilities, and other qualities are important to judicial performance? What does scholarship tell us about judging and judicial performance? What are the challenges in measuring judicial performance, the extent to which existing evaluation programs can capture what it means to be a judge, and the potential for developing multi-method evaluation programs? An underlying theme is the nature and desirability of linking evaluations of individual judges with evaluations of the court system and the ways in which results from performance evaluation can be incorporated into educational and other programs designed to promote improvements in the quality of the judiciary.

The papers cluster around three major themes: (i) Conceptual and methodological issues; (ii) Experiences of evaluating judges; and (iii) Empirical research findings. [+info]

Vol. 4, n. 6 (2014): Justice in Literature: New Perspectives on European Legal Culture

(Special issue)

Issue edited by Joxerramon Bengoetxea (University of the Basque Country) and Iker Nabaskues (University of the Basque Country)

The articles gathered in this issue are the result of papers presented at the workshop held at the Oñati International Institute for the Sociology of Law on 20-21 May 2013 on Perspectives of Justice in Literature: Perspectives from Justice and Fundamental Rights in Literature: an Approach from Legal Culture in a European context. Literature and literary fiction can act as a thread that helps different disciplines to communicate with each other and can thus help go beyond the strictly legal field opening up to questions of justice and rights. These papers deal with issues of justice - mainly Fundamental Rights, but also procedural aspects of justice and its administration, philosophical perspectives of justice - and of legal culture - local, European, Universal - as reflected through and by literature. [+info]