Bunjevac, Tin (2017) Transforming court governance in Victoria. PhD thesis, Victoria University.

Abstract

This thesis by publication analyses the emergence of independent judicial councils and their role in facilitating judicial control of court administration in Australia, Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK, the USA and other countries. While much research has been conducted into the relative merits of judicial control of court administration, the thesis extends the court governance literature by developing an analytical policy framework for a model Judicial Council of Victoria with broad statutory responsibility for improving the quality of justice in the court system. The thesis then applies the proposed analytical model to assess the legal and institutional framework of Court Services Victoria (‘CSV’), which was established in 2014 in order to transfer the responsibility for court administration from the executive government to the judiciary. The thesis argues that an independent judicial council, such as CSV, requires a strong developmental mandate to assist the courts improve their operations and respond to a multitude of internal and external challenges that they inherited from the executive system of court administration. At the level of the courts, the framework envisages the establishment of a compact management board, comprising executive judges and the court CEO, which is modelled upon a corporate board of executive directors, with full responsibility for court administration.

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