The reform of Latin America’s judicial systems, once considered a specialized concern of judges and lawyers, is now at the center of the region’s development agenda, IDB President Enrique V. Iglesias said at a recent conference.
Speaking at the Third Regional Conference on Justice and Development, held in Quito, Ecuador from July 24 to 26, Iglesias acknowledged that the IDB originally approached judicial reform somewhat narrowly, as a means of strengthening legal guarantees for investors.
The region’s governments quickly made clear that improvements in the administration of justice were needed for much more fundamental reasons. “It became apparent that the rule of law and the judicial sector play an important role in addressing one of the main objectives of economic development—social equity,” Iglesias said. “And that access to justice—prompt, transparent and trustworthy justice—is a fundamental right of every citizen, in that it makes each of us equal before the law.”
This growing appreciation of the social importance of judicial reform, and of “the deep link between the consolidation of our democracies and the consolidation of our judicial systems,” led to an explosion in judicial reform initiatives in the 1990s.
Iglesias noted that during the last ten years 21 of the IDB’s member countries have sought assistance for judicial reform projects, borrowing nearly $500 million from the Bank to finance such efforts. The IDB has also disbursed nearly $50 million in technical cooperation grants to support these judicial reform programs.
The reforms have affected nearly every area of civil, criminal and commercial law, and in some countries they have radically changed the way justice is administered. While citing progress in areas such as broader access to the courts and improvements in the efficiency and transparency of judicial proceedings, Iglesias warned that a great deal remains to be done.
“The task is not completed yet,” Iglesias said. “Our justice is still slow, and the level of trust in our judicial systems is still too low.”
The President of Ecuador, Lucio Gutiérrez, who addressed the opening session of the conference, also underscored the urgency of extending reforms. He said that “no economic or social model will be capable of succeeding with the current levels of corruption, impunity and injustice” that prevail throughout the region. Gutiérrez cited a broad range of judicial reform and modernization initiatives currently underway in Ecuador and he noted the success of the country’s courts in strengthening judicial independence and efficiency.
Working sessions at the conference were devoted to analyzing progress in four broad areas: the independence and impartiality of judges; criminal procedure reform; judicial administration, management, and organization; and challenges regarding access to justice, governance and civil society.