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CENTRE OF EXPERTISE IN JUDICIARY @ TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL ROMANIA
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4. Monitoring judicial decisions and processes
TI Chapters across regions have also developed mechanisms to allow citizens and civil society to
more directly observe, monitor and discuss judicial decisions and processes. For example:
•
TI
Lithuania
has developed a website to promote judicial transparency and accountability by
giving citizens the opportunity to monitor and evaluate the work of Lithuanian courts.
•
TI Slovakia
is planning to create a web application that will visualise various data on judges’ in-
court activity and out-of-court behaviour; this portal will enable the public to observe and discuss
decisions of individual judges.
•
Coalición Elección Visible (Coalition for visible/open election) is a programme run in
Colombia
;
it follows the process of nomination and election of high court judges and other senior officials
and advocates for high standards of transparency in these processes.
•
Following a 2011 campaign by
TI Bangladesh
to increase transparency in the judiciary, today
all judges are required to publicly submit statements of wealth.
•
TI Macedonia
is working on the ‘Establishing Corruption Trial Monitoring programme’, aimed at
identifying criminal cases of corruption, as well as at strengthening the cooperation with public
prosecutors’ offices, the Anti-Corruption Commission and other relevant institutions whose goal
is to fight corruption.
•
In 2012,
TI Indonesia
developed a new tool, called Merdeka, with the purpose of monitoring
public courts. It displays information of currently running cases and allows users to watch the
progress of cases and then rate and give their opinions on the verdicts.
•
TI Serbia
developed a project in partnership with the Serbian’s Judges Association, which aims
at monitoring and assessing the results of the judiciary in the fight against corruption. In addition,
it monitors the overall implementation of the country’s anti-corruption legislation. Based on the
assessments conducted, the project will help identify weaknesses in the system and actions to
be taken in order to overcome them.
•
TI Armenia
developed in 2012 a project called “Monitoring of Law Enforcement and Justice
Administration”. This project has the goal of strengthening law enforcement in the country, through
encouraging the civil society’s participation in policy-making, monitoring the performance of law
enforcement and other oversight institutions, and the analysis of the findings stemming from
these activities. The analysis of these findings, together with an assessment of internationally
accepted standards in the field, was then used to develop recommendations for change.
•
The Judiciary Watch Project (JWP) is a project implemented by
TI Ghana
in 2007. The project
was launched by the late Chief Justice of Ghana, working together with the Ghana Integrity
Initiative (GII), TI Ghana and the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ). It was developed with
the aim of monitoring the performance of the judicial branch of the government, as well as
analyse the key problems of corruption that hamper the effective and efficient performance of
the judiciary.
•
Starting in 2003,
TI Norway
regularly monitors court decisions regarding corporate corruption
cases. They have recently published an updated report on this.
•
TI Rwanda
is currently working on an EU-funded project on court monitoring. The overall
objective of the project is to contribute to strengthening the rule of law in Rwanda by achieving a
more professional, effective and accountable justice system. In order to achieve this, TI Rwanda
will gather evidence on the strengths or weaknesses of courts and tribunals, promote a culture
of accountability in the justice system, and formulate policy solutions to tackle the identified
weaknesses.