Being a minister of justice

Innovation blocked by rules codifying ancient practices

When an innovative new justice service is developed, the rules have to change as well.

• Lawyers can only act for one party. They can be very effective in creating solutions that work for both sides.
• Prosecutors are supposed to prosecute a crime. They now also support victims and help perpetrators to get the right kind of therapy.

In the 1920s, lawyers codified their best practices for organising the legal profession. Law professors helped judges to design their procedures in the 1850s. These rules should not limit the good things that justice workers can do.

• Judges are supposed to listen to claims and evidence and then to issue a judgment. They can be very effective as facilitators of a settlement agreements that work for both parties.
• Village courts, community paralegals and other local justice workers are not supposed to deal with assault or money claims higher than a certain amount. They can solve many conflicts locally, even when some violence has occurred, or when the monetary stakes are higher.

Court leaders and innovators who want to deliver treatments that work, always have to lobby for a change in the rules.

It can take long to change the rules of civil procedure or the self-regulation by lawyers.
So few innovations succeed.
Then citizens are deprived of good services.
The result may be that they get justice services designed for their great-grandparents, who were living in a time when electricity lit the first light bulb.