Introduction

Assessments
Elements of an Overview Assessment
Monitoring
Evaluation
Research
Conclusions

References
Annex I: List of Basic Statistics for an Assessment
Annex II: A Proposed Instrument for Assessing Judicial Operations

Conclusions:
There is a special irony in judicial reform’s problems with knowledge management. The sector itself is, one assumes, an area which prioritizes intellectual effort and which is dedicated to processing information. Clearly there are also disciplinary and agency biases at work. Lawyers are not scientists and reformers tend to be activists, not dispassionate analysts. Multidisciplinary contributions are a plus, but the absence of an applied disciplinary base has made their input all too academic. It has also discouraged cross-disciplinary dialogue – the various disciplines are present but they don’t necessarily build on each others’ work. However, both reformers and academics with an interest in the theme, and not simply advancing in their respective primary homes, will need to overcome these problems if the field itself is to survive.

The topic does have more status, as an academic and applied discipline, in the industrialized nations. It would thus also be helpful if those involved in Third World reforms paid more attention to the developments in the “North.” [ 21 ] Some clearly have, but their readings tend to be highly selective, and one suspects they are not following the emerging arguments in full. Otherwise they might put a little less faith in the remedies they adopt, many of which are now being questioned in the countries where they were first introduced [ 22 ] . One characteristic of a mature discipline is its development of major unresolved issues and internal conflicts. Members argue with each other because they agree on where they disagree, and it is this process of confronting contradictions that eventually leads to a better shared understanding. As practiced in the Third World, judicial reform and judicial studies still lack that trait. It is as though the participants had agreed not to enter into conflict, and thus to endorse a common dogma. There are exceptions, but they tend to be unwelcome because they are violating the fireman’s syndrome by treading on the hose.

Improved knowledge management clearly threatens that cozy status quo. It requires more work, and it also endangers conventional routines. As always, the basic challenge is to get participants to focus on the long term losses as opposed to the short run gains. So long as those who control the funding continue to believe that judicial reform is important and feasible, there are immediate advantages to working in the dark. Over the short run, the funders won’t notice the difference, and they might actually be disheartened by reports that things are not as easy or as certain as they seem. Still if the interest is in working real changes, as opposed to the merely cosmetic and in enhancing our ability to continue making them, our knowledge base requires continual attention. Better assessments, monitoring, evaluation, and research are a start. If we have collectively failed to ascend the learning curve, that is primarily because we have failed to construct one.