Contributors in political science and law, but also computers and electronics, examine the concept of openness in the judiciary, and identify and analyze worldwide initiatives that focus on opening judicial organizations by making them more transparent and collaborative/participatory. After overview chapters, they cover open justice in Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Among the topics are open and transparent judicial records in the digital age: applying principles and performance measures, an analysis of a lay adjudication system and open judiciary: the new Japanese lay adjudication system, digitalizing police requirements: opening up justice through collaborative initiatives, and open data for open justice in seven Latin American countries.
– Protoview Reviews
In the broader movement to bring forward-thinking governing principles to the global table, leaders have made steady progress in relation to the laws they make and execute. This volume in the Advances in Public Policy and Administration (APPA) series examines the work that needs to be done on the judicial end in order to fulfill the vision of a more modern, open government.
Chapters are arranged into four sections, three of which focus individually on the pursuit of open justice throughout the regions of Asia, Europe, and Latin America. An overview precedes these sections and provides a good summation of the concepts of open judiciary best practices, performance measures, citizen participation, records access, and more. The volume includes more specific topics such as the challenges of implementing open justice in a highly controlled Chinese society, collaborative justice administration in Spain, and creating ways to assess how technology works to create open justice throughout Latin America.
Like other titles in the series, chapters begin with an abstract to summarize the impetus for the research to follow. Information is presented in concise paragraphs aided by the occasional use of bullet points, tables, headings and subheadings, key terms and definitions, and more.
References are listed at the end of each chapter and are compiled at the volume’s end, as well. End pages also include brief contributor biographies and an index. This reference can be an essential source for students, policy-makers, and other professionals with an interest in global justice issues, transparent government, and related topics.
– ARBA Staff Reviewer