Administrative supervision as a tool for building trust in the courts and judges

Abstract:

The aim of the chapter is to analyse various factors which are responsible for fostering trust in the courts and judges. The starting point for the research is the connection between trust and supervision, including its consequences for the evaluation of courts within societies. These two terms remain in a correlation, in the sense that an adoption of supervision can make a court’s adjudication more effective and professional for parties to the proceedings. For the achievement of this goal, supervision measures should be adopted with a high level of restraint, in order not to violate judicial independence, which is the basic element for fostering trust in the courts. The adoption of supervision should remain under the court’s verification and be transparent. Public control of the adopted supervision is performed by the media, which assures foreseeability of the undertaken decisions, but may have a negative influence the proper application of the supervision rules. Additionally, in the present situation of the Covid-19 pandemic, when many restrictions are imposed on citizens, the use of supervision measures may strengthen trust in the courts through the efficient review of the restrictions. All the state powers should be interested in fostering the trust placed in the courts. Only independent courts which benefit from a high level of trust can exercise their role of shaping the rule of law.