Justice Sector Assessments can provide understanding of what is wrong in a justice system. Case delay, lack of access to justice and corruption are the most common user complaints. They are impediments to economic growth; they also disproportionately affect poor people.

 

How to define, detect and find remedies for these and other problems is the core of diagnostics.  An assessment provides a basis for reform programming and consensus building, and a baseline for measuring reform progress.

 

Based on an examination of the Bank’s assessment process, this handbook is a methodological guide for carrying out justice sector assessments. It provides lessons learned from past experience and an overview of good practices from the Bank and other institutions. This is the first description of practices in justice sector assessments available.

 

Using case studies, examples and tools, the handbook is a practical guide, It is meant primarily for team leaders but also for development practitioners. The handbook follows the order of the assessment events. 

Download Handbook
Visitors can download the entire handbook or go directly to one of its six chapters:
	Chapter 1 introduces justice sector assessments, discusses the scope of the handbook and the state of the art of assessments, and previews the chapters to come.
	Chapter 2  provides guidance on the preassessment stages: choosing a team, setting the assessment scope, organizing, making first choices, managing risks, and building relationships with counterparts. This chapter will be of special interest to the primary audience.
	Chapter 3  discusses the assessment process and its different steps in detail. These steps, as well as the core material on the assessment process, also should be useful to the members of the assessment team itself. Â
	Chapter 4  examines a large array of methodologies and tools that can be used in an assessment, and their strengths and weaknesses.Â
	Chapter 5  provides concise information on the most common complaints about justice institutions: case delay, access to justice, and corruption.     Â
	Chapter 6  offers very practical guidance, intended primarily for team leaders, on report writing and on the post-assessment process of discussion, broader dissemination, and operationalization of the recommendations.   Â
	The Appendices  provide an outline for an assessment, a collection of international conventions and other instruments, and the references.     Â
The Handbook was launched on March 29, 2007. Click here for a brief report on the event, and here for the full report This toolkit was prepared by a multidisciplinary team under the responsibility of the World Bank’s Justice Reform Practice Group (2007). The Task Manager was Dory Reiling.