Menu for Justice - Toward an European curriculum studiorum on judicial studies (JUSTMEN)

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Menu for Justice - Toward an European curriculum studiorum on judicial studies (JUSTMEN)

A common legal framework and a convergent judicial culture represent one of the pillars on which the European integration process has been established. Today more than ever, understanding and maintenance of the pace and direction of European integration needs to rely on a common language with which European citizens and policy makers can develop a dialogue that bridges domestic and cultural differences.

Menu for Justice is the first European project that takes seriously the issue of how the new generation of Europeans should be trained in law and legal matters and how experts in law and the judicial process can develop new skills and competences to effectively face the challenges of a common judicial space. By devoting three years to joint working among fifty partners in Europe, this project aims to assess the key gaps in legal and judicial education in all European countries at all stages of education: from undergraduate to graduate and PhD programs in universities to vocational training of lawyers and judges. By assessing the "state of the art" of education for law students, lawyers and judges in Europe, Menu for Justice aims to provide vital information to policy makers considering the development of an innovative curriculum studiorum in judicial studies. It will also provide European institutions and the public with basic guidelines for monitoring the way legal and judicial training are changing in Europe.

Estatuto:

Entidade proponente

Financiado:

Sim

Entidades:

Universitá di Bologna

Rede:

JUSTMEN

Keywords:

Legal education;

Judicial training;

Curricula reform;

Judicial studies

Objectivos:

MFJ aims to offer an overview of the regulatory and practical barriers European countries are confronting when it comes to the reform of legal and judicial training programs. The project aims to conduct a critical review of the contents of training. Legal scholars and judicial actors will be particularly affected by choices concerning what to learn and how to teach. We intend to map out the possible contents of a curriculum studiorum in judicial and legal studies, to be used to compliment existing programs of legal and judicial training in European countries.

State of the art:

The term ‘national integrity system' (NIS) was popularised internationally since the mid 1990s by Jeremy Pope, foundation managing director of Transparency International, based on two experiences: the post-Fitzgerald Electoral and Administrative Review Commission (EARC) reform process in Queensland, Australia in 1989-1994 (albeit a provincial rather than national process: Pope 2003: 5); and a National Integrity Workshop in Tanzania in 1995 (Sedigh & Muganda 1999: 171; Pope 2000: 36; 2003: 10). Since its articulation in the Transparency International ‘Sourcebooks' of 1997 and 2000 (Pope 2000), the concept has been used as a basis for qualitatively assessing the integrity infrastructure of 33 countries using a methodology developed by Professor Alan Doig, with another 22 in progress (TI 2001; Doig & McIvor 2003a; 2003b; Larmour & Barcham 2004). Currently, in-progress studies include an anlysis of 25 European countries. TI has used a graphical metaphor of an ancient ‘Greek temple' to capture the types of institutions commonly found in an integrity system (its ‘pillars') and how they perform and interact to create institutional constraints to corruption in all spheres of activity public and private and levels of government local, national and international. The interconnectedness of the various pillars is fundamental to the NIS concept. As Pope (2000:36) describes, ‘the pillars are interdependent but may be of differing strengths. If one pillar weakens, an increased load is thrown onto one or more of the others. If several pillars weaken, their load will ultimately tilt... crash to the ground and the whole edifice collapse into chaos.' This understanding of the NIS is a good starting point, since the individual institutions involved will clearly vary from country to country. However, it offers a very static perspective of the functioning of any NIS. Any assessment based simply on examining whether a country displays these institutions in this configuration cannot escape the problems of reform proposals that ‘emphasise the same factors everywhere, and thus do not really fit anywhere' (Johnson in Quah 2003:244; see further Brown & Uhr 2004). Consequently, at least five important background questions arise (Brown and Sampford 2005): 1. How we assess an integrity system depends to a significant degree on how we define ‘integrity', not just in relation to the personal integrity of individuals, but also the institutions through which most political and economic power is exercised; 2) A second major set of questions at the scoping stage concern the range of institutions and processes that will form the focus of the assessment. While ‘public integrity' is often assumed to mean ‘public sector' or ‘government' integrity, in fact, it means integrity as it applies to any or all institutions of public importance, in which officeholders have legal or ethical duties to the wider society. Integrity systems are, therefore, found in and across different sectors. Unfortunately, most assessments tend to focus on public institutions and treating non-governmental ones in large non-descriminated pillars such as "Business", "Media" or "Civil Society"; 3) the third major question concerns the process of identifying and describing the constituent ‘elements' of a country's integrity system. This process is multidimensional and must be conducted from first principles or ‘the ground up', rather than in terms of a preconceived institutional template. Unfortunately, TI's approach is bottom-down, starting from a preconceived institutional framework and set of indicators, which may not fit the institutional reality of a given country; 4) the fourth question to bear in mind is to what extent the theory that corruption is better resisted and suppressed through an holistic, multifaceted systems approach than through single institutions or laws. The recurrent problem with the "holistic" approach has often led to unsuccessful institutional mimetism and ground zero approaches to corruption control; 5) the final question in whether this exhaustive exercise will have the expected policy impact. NIS assessments tend to offer an aalytical description of a complex governance system; whether such analysis will help policymakers to diagnose problems and implement reforms is something that often escapes the intentions of the project coordinators.

Parceria:

Rede Internacional

Coordenador Geral

Daniela Piana (University of Bologna)

Coordenador ICS