Organization Development of the Dutch Judiciary, between Accountability and Judicial Independence

Abstract

The Netherlands are a country on the European Continent with a French inspired legal system as far as civil and criminal law is concerned. Administrative law has followed a different development and reflects the middle position of the Netherlands between the French, English and German administrative law systems, while maintaining a dominant procedural position of public administration. However, the organization of the Dutch judiciary mainly follows the lines of the original French conceptions: it has been organized in accordance with the concepts brought to the low countries by Napoleons’ army. This traditional continental judicial organization, operated by the ministry of justice and court presidents’ for over 150 years has gone through considerable institutional and organizational change during the last 15 years. In this article I will sketch the outcomes of a mayor evaluation research of the changes in the Dutch judiciary that started in 1995 and evolve until today. I will do this by first describing the change process against the background of the New Public Management. Second, I will describe the proposals for change and the actual changes. Finally I will describe the most salient outcomes of the evaluation study. I will conclude with a brief discussion of these outcomes.