Over the past two decades, legal and judicial reform has been recognized as an essential component in achieving sustainable development.

A modern legal framework and a well-functioning judicial system are crucial in: (i) supporting the protection of contractual and property rights, as well as protecting civil liberties; (ii) stimulating economic growth through private sector development public sector management; (iii) facilitating the peaceful resolution of disputes; and (iv) achieving good governance.

The Justice Sector is defined to include a wide array of institutions and stakeholders which represent the various branches of the StateÑexecutive, legislative, and judicial branches.  The sector is no longer only limited to the courts at various levels, but includes public prosecutors and defenders, legal aid providers, civil society actors such as law schools, bar associations, and of course, relevant government entities such as Ministries of Justice, etc.  Reform and/or modernization efforts seek to adopt a comprehensive, participatory, and multi-faceted approach, including coordination within the sector and with other donor agencies and development institutions.

What the World Bank is doing in this area

The Bank identifies effective legal and judicial reform as one of the four structural pillars of development in the Comprehensive Development Framework. This commitment is shared by the LCR Public Sector Group, in partnership with the Bank-wide Public Sector Governance Group, the Legal Vice-Presidency, other networks of the Latin American and Caribbean Department, the World Bank Institute and others.

The primary focus of the BankÕs justice sector initiatives include:

(a)      Upgrading policies, norms and procedures;
(b)      Strengthening organizational capability of the justice institutions for greater efficiency and effectiveness;
(c)      Professional training of judges, court administrators and other personnel in the justice sector, for quality and service;
(d)      Enhancing independence, transparency and accountability of the justice system, thus encouraging good governance;
(e)      Increasing citizen access to, and participation in, the justice system and;
(f)        Improving alternative dispute resolution mechanisms.

 Additionally, reform initiatives are increasingly targeting sub-national institutions, tailoring strategies to respond to local needs and capabilities.

Legal and Justice Reform in the Latin America and Caribbean Region

 ÒLearning from Experience to Produce Enhanced ResultsÓ

 Since extending its first justice reform loan in 1992, the Latin America and Caribbean Region (LCR) has extended 10 loans, made eight grants and supported ten major analytical work, in addition to initiating numerous publications and leading  conferences.

 The RegionÕs approach to justice reform has evolved over time, adapting to lessons learned and mixed results on the ground. Once only considered a mechanism for law reform and court capacity, the increasing significance of justice reform within the broader development framework has led to the expansion of activities to include the improvement of all justice sector institutions in conflict resolution and enforcement of the normative framework. The approach now encompasses targeting ÔobstaclesÕ (including those outside the sector) which affect the efficiency, accessibility, quality and overall effectiveness of the justice system. The Latin America and Caribbean Region has taken a very innovative and inclusive approach to justice reform by recognizing the need to specifically address such issues as gender inequality and juvenile justice within its projects. 

 In addition, the LCR Region has developed an integrated justice reform strategy to expand knowledge sharing and learning in order to harness good practices and lessons, as well as to develop quantitative performance indicators and impact measurement tools. The Region, which includes countries of civil law and common law traditions, is also sharing its experience with other regions, which are expanding their operations, thus helping to increase cross-fertilization and encourage learning.

Challenges ahead

 While the results of recent justice reform projects within the Region have shown promising results, several challenges remain in this area.

 First, given the inherently political nature of justice sector reform, entrenched interests within the government and the judiciary must be overcome in order to engender political support for reform. Second, research and statistics, enforcement of judgments, monitoring and evaluation mechanisms need to be actively developed to assess who uses the court and for what purposes, so that court and non-court related justice reform strategies can be developed with a better perspective on the demand and supply of justice services. Third, harnessing the lessons of experience should be a permanent feature of the reform process, so that evaluation, incentives and results become the driving force to hold the judiciary accountable for its performance. Finally, reform measures must be sustainable and evidence a long-term commitment from policy makers in governmentÑjudicial, executive and legislative officials. Experience has shown that reform efforts are most successful when they target all elements of the justice system, include wide stakeholder participation, are tailored to accommodate local realities and are appropriately sequenced.

• programmatic loans in support of policy reform processes that extend over three or more years;
• technical assistance loans that strengthen government capacity and incorporate good practices from all over the world;
• economic and sector work in preparation of complex decentralization reforms such the reform of inter-government fiscal transfers or budget reform for coordinated inter-government monitoring and evaluation of public expenditure.
• Challenges ahead

Subnational Government Development in Latin America
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State decentralization in Latin America and the Caribbean is just completing the reforms of the first generation, consisting of effective financial and control measures. Still, most subnational governments have yet to demonstrate their capacity and willingness to do additional tax and fee efforts. Second and third generation reforms shall necessarily address the issues of adjusting the central government to policy making, planning and evaluation while subnational governments consolidate their own management capacity. The pace of decentralization has to be further adjusted to unequal capacities of subnational governments. The principle of subsidiarity will probably call for a more prominent role of national or regional governments during the transition to the decentralized state. In any case, second and third generation reforms will probably build upon a solid fiscal basis created by first generation reforms. If this is the case, the balance the reform movement will likely be more inclined towards public administration issues including quality of public expenditure, enhanced transparency in accounting and reporting and better utilization of integrated financial management systems and e-government.
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The focus of the Bank in Latin America is not furthering decentralization, but to strengthen subnational governments.Ê