International Judicial Monitor

Published by the International Judicial Academy, Washington, D.C., with assistance from the
American Society of International Law
Summer 2016 Issue

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Results and Challenges: Piloting of the International Framework for Court Excellence

By: Cristina Malai, Consultant in Judicial Reform, Moldova

Introduction

Imagine a beautiful, renovated court with polite court staff, speedy court trials, clear court decisions, satisfied court visitors and a nice working atmosphere. Hard to attain, you ask?

Three courts in the Republic of Moldova each had a vision to create the best possible court and offer the best possible service when, in January 2015, they embarked on a challenging path of piloting the International Framework for Court Excellence (IFCE) in Moldova.

The Republic of Moldova is a small country located between Ukraine and Romania. In 1991 Moldova, once a republic of the Soviet Union, commenced a journey of total transformation of all its institutions. The reform of the judiciary still remains the country’s top priority.

The International Framework for Court Excellence (IFCE) is a quality management system designed to help courts improve their performance. The general idea beyond the IFCE is that excellent courts must invest in the following seven areas: 1) court leadership and management, 2) court planning and policies, 3) court resources, 4) court proceedings and processes, 5) client needs and satisfaction, 6) affordable and accessible court services; 7) public trust and confidence.

In October 2014, I attended the 7^th International Conference of the International Association for Court Administration (IACA) in Sydney, Australia. At the conference, I was fascinated by the results that several Australian courts achieved after implementing the IFCE. Upon returning to Moldova, in my capacity as the Deputy Director of a United States Agency for International Development (USAID) - funded Rule of Law project in Moldova, ROLISP, I approached the Moldovan Judicial Council and suggested piloting the IFCE in Moldova. I briefly described the experience and results of the Australian courts and shared my opinion about how IFCE implementation could benefit Moldovan courts.

The Moldovan Judicial Council enthusiastically supported the idea. In December 2014, the Council selected three courts willing to pilot the IFCE. The prerequisite for selecting the pilot courts was a strong and harmonious leadership team (court president and court administrator) so that the IFCE implementation would not be sabotaged during the pilot project. The Judicial Council selected three pilot courts: the Balti Court of Appeals (second largest appeals court in Moldova), the Criuleni District Court and the Donduseni District court.

At the time of the IFCE piloting, the Balti Court of Appeals had 24 judges, 124 staff and 5500 new cases per year; the Criuleni District Court had 5 judges, 34 staff and 2700 new cases per year, and the Donduseni District Court – 4 judges, 28 staff and 1730 new cases per year.

IFCE implementation

The Moldova pilot IFCE project lasted 10 months. It started in January 2015 and finished in October 2015. The pilot project was a four-stage process. The stages were: 1) workshops about IFCE values and focus areas conducted for the pilot courts; 2) pilot courts self-assessments; 3) court staffs’ and court users’ surveys; 4) development and implementation of individual Action Plans based on the results of the self-assessments and surveys.

During stage one, the pilot courts learned about the history, focus areas and aims of the IFCE, as well as the necessary steps to implement it. During stage two, the pilot courts’ leadership and key staff participated in a thorough self-assessment of the court’s performance in each of the IFCE’s seven areas of focus. During stage three, courts conducted anonymous court users’ and court staffs’ surveys. The court users’ surveys evaluated court users’ satisfaction level with the location and infrastructure of the court, the quality of services offered by the court staff, the timeliness of court hearings, the perception of the judges’ work, and the overall satisfaction level with the court user’s experience in the court.

The pilot courts also anonymously surveyed their staffs, using an on-line survey. The survey questions were about the staff’s level of satisfaction, motivation and engagement. The participating court staff assigned points for each of these assessed categories. The results of the surveys offered invaluable insights to the pilot courts’ leadership and key staff about the weaknesses they had to address to improve court performance.

The fourth and final stage of the IFCE piloting was a key stage. During this stage the pilot courts, using the information accumulated during stages two and three, developed detailed action plans and took vigorous steps to implement them. In addition to developing an Action Plan for the duration of the IFCE piloting, the courts also drafted medium and long-term Development Plans, which courts will use as blueprints for change beyond the IFCE piloting.

As mentioned above, the Moldova IFCE project lasted 10 months. In November 2015, the USAID ROLISP project funded a national conference, during which the pilot courts presented the results of the IFCE piloting. The Ministry of Justice, representatives of the Judicial Council, as well as court presidents and court administrators from all Moldovan courts attended the conference. At the conference, speakers from the pilot courts described the main successes and challenges encountered during the IFCE piloting, as well as the lessons learned and the need to continue to strive to excel beyond the piloting phase. At the conference, the Judicial Council presented a Guide for the IFCE implementation in Moldova, which any Moldovan court willing to implement the IFCE could use as a future resource.

Overall changes triggered by the IFCE piloting

In addition to the specific achievements of each pilot court, I would like to emphasize the significant mentality shifts and awareness shifts which occurred in each of the pilot courts. A first important mentality shift was the staff’s attitude change from “we are just colleagues” to “we are a team!” For the first time, court leadership and staff realized how important it is to genuinely join efforts and develop a vision and strive to achieve a common goal.

A second mentality shift can be summarized as “Be proactive!” Traditionally, courts in Moldova are waiting to be told “from above” how to streamline and improve court practices. The IFCE piloting inspired the pilot courts to take action towards improving how the court operates; how it interacts with the court customers; and how it motivates court staff. All these actions and changes were possible within the existing legislative and normative framework.

The awareness shift occurred when the pilot courts obtained a clear understanding both about the court users’ perspective on how the court performs, as well as how court staffs perceive the working atmosphere in the court. Such acquired awareness has helped the pilot courts leadership make informed decisions about the changes necessary to implement in the courts and to plan medium and long-term interventions accordingly.

Specific achievements

Aside from the overarching mentality and awareness shifts referenced above, below are some specific achievements of the pilot courts resulting from the IFCE implementation.

The Balti Court of Appeals piloted summoning parties by e-mail. This innovation helped parties and attorneys to better plan their calendars and also have more time to prepare for trial, because the electronic summons reached them well before the paper summons.
The court published and offered to court users a flyer listing the court’s working hours, contact information for court key staff, amounts and types of court fees and how and where the fees could be paid. As a result, the court staff reported a significant decrease in the number of phone calls and personal interactions with court users to obtain the information listed in the flyer.
The Balti Court of Appeals also focused on monitoring and improving judicial performance. It used the court performance indicators to assess and compare the performance of each judge, and explore the reasons for a judge’s underperformance.
As a way to enhance transparency and public relations, the Balti Court of Appeals invited a group of law students from the local law school to conduct mock trials in the courtrooms. The students were thrilled to have the opportunity to practice their litigation skills in a real court setting and receive valuable feedback from practicing judges.

The changes in the Criuleni District Court were of a different nature. The internal self-assessment revealed that the procedure of receiving, tracking, examining and answering court users’ complaints was chaotic. To tackle the problem, the court developed and implemented a clear procedure for handling citizens’ complaints, which significantly streamlined the process.

The court also developed and made available to court visitors a flyer that explains, in layperson’s terms, the stages of a court case. The flyer incorporates images to illustrate each stage. The Criuleni court staff reported that many citizens who read the flyer commented on how the flyer enabled them to understand what to expect during the court procedure.

Criuleni judges and court staff visited several local high schools to deliver brief street-law type classes on human rights and the court’s role in a rule of law-based society. Subsequently, a group of high school students reached out to the court for help with writing an essay on child rights protection. That essay was a winner in a local contest.

The Donduseni District court focused on improving the court goers’ experience and improving the working conditions for the court staff. The intake office was renovated and modernized and the public relations office was conveniently relocated near the court’s entrance. The juvenile witness examination room was painted in brighter colors and equipped with toys, in order to increase the comfort level of minor witnesses who will be interviewed in the room. The space for arrested persons was also renovated to offer more dignified conditions.

The Donduseni court staffs’ surveys indicated discontent with the fact that there was no area in the court area where the staff could take a break. To address this issue, the court created an area where court staff could spend time to have a cup of tea and lunch.

In order to increase the efficiency of summoning the parties, the Donduseni district court signed a memorandum of understanding with the local postal office providing that the postal office would treat court summons as priority correspondence. As a result, the time for delivering summons to the parties decreased.

An area that court users complained about in surveys was the clarity of court decisions. The court users indicated that the decisions were generally difficult to understand. To address the issue, the Donduseni court president conducted several meetings with judges on this topic and encouraged judges to simplify the manner in which they write decisions.

To measure the impact of the changes, in October 2015 all pilot courts repeated the surveys to measure the level of satisfaction of court users. The results showed improved scores in many areas, from infrastructure to clarity of judgments and overall quality of court service.

Challenges

Aside from the many overall and specific achievements, the pilot courts also faced several challenges during the IFCE implementation.

A major challenge was lack of time to implement many of the planned activities since the piloting phase lasted only ten months. Lack of funds for implementing all the desired activities was another challenge. Also, not all court staff wanted to genuinely participate in improving the activity of the court and some were pessimistic about the IFCE piloting. Sustainability was another challenge. The new procedures and practices have be institutionalized and observed by the courts’ leadership and staff if the courts are to continue using them. The hardest challenge, however, was and still is for the courts to regularly and consistently promote excellence in all areas of court’s activity.

The Development Plans that the pilot courts drafted will serve as roadmaps for the courts to continue on the path to excellence and to address these challenges. The Guide on the IFCE implementation in Moldova will help other Moldovan courts to implement IFCE.

Conclusion

During the IFCE piloting, the three pilot courts adopted as their motto the saying by Aristotle: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit!”

The experience of the three Moldovan pilot courts demonstrated that the IFCE is a valuable model that provides a clear process for judges, staff and leadership to marshal views and design a blueprint for change.

A vision for the end goal, accompanied by strategy, dedication and determination are the key ingredients that will make any court in the world successful at using the IFCE to develop and implement their own blueprint for change.

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International Judicial Monitor
© 2016 – The International Judicial Academy
with assistance from the American Society of International Law.

Editor: James G. Apple.
IJM welcomes comments, suggestions, and submissions.
Please contact the IJM editor at ijaworld@verizon.net.