JUSTICE STUDIES CENTER OF THE AMERICAS

Report on Activities, REMJA V Washington D.C. – April 2004

A new force in the modernization of America’s judicial systems

JSCA

Mission• To provide a new

impetus for modernizing justice systems throughout the continent

• To promote the highest standards of respect for and protection of human rights and greater efficiency in the performance of judicial work

Strategy• To approach changes

from a public policy perspective

• To take advantage of the synergies and economies of scale generated by regional work

• To create a united regional community to stand behind the changes

• To take advantage of new technologies

Three Key Goals

Three Key Goals

To conduct in-depth studies of the region’s justice systems and develop

innovative contributions to discussions of judicial reform.

1.

JSCA and Criminal Justice

JSCA is developing a second-generation strategy to give renewed force to criminal procedure reforms in the region on the basis of:

Analyzing the specific problems that the reforms are facing

Producing specific information on the reforms

Contributing to debate at the local level

Strengthening the local groups that originally backed the reforms

Detecting and adopting the best practices

Strengthening a regional movement

Follow-up Project on Criminal Procedure Reform in the Americas

The main findings have been:

In matters of substance:

Public prosecutor’s offices have not played as dynamic a role as originally expected

Marginal role played by orality

Weakness of the guarantee function

Formal defense

The main problems are located in the area of management.

Traditional training systems are not functioning.

Constant political support and external evaluations are indispensable.

JSCA has achieved the following as a result ofits use of this strategy

JSCA has managed to position itself as an important actor in criminal justice reforms in most countries in

Latin America.

JSCA offers technical assistance in several of those countries in order to introduce the corrections that

ongoing reforms require.

Our reports are being considered by the countries that are getting involved in reform processes.

JSCA has developed a regional training program to educate local leaders about how these reforms can be

successfully managed.

Criminal reforms and gender

Criminal reforms and indigenous communities

Criminal prosecution

Criminal Procedure in the Caribbean

This work has led us to consider other areas of action:

We have also carried out studies of:

Justice and Civil Society

Women’s Rights Tribunals

Justice and Racial Discrimination

Three Key Goals

To strengthen regional cooperation and the exchange of experiences among key organizations in the justice sector.

2.

Main Projects

This program is designed to optimize and strengthen the process of implementing criminal justice reform in the Americas through the presentation of knowledge, tools and skills that will allow a group of regional leaders to promote innovative approaches to and practices associated with the resolution of specific problems. This program is being supported by CIDA.

InterAmerican Program for Training Trainers forCriminal Procedure Reform

The program consists of 4 stages:

o Basic Course: Completedo Intermediate Course via E- Learning: In progresso Advanced Courseo Local Repetitions

Program Participants

146 people from 20 countries applied to the training program. Of these, 53 were selected to participate.

73 people from 19 countries registered for the Basic Course.

  1 2 3 4 5 Average Score

How would you rate the quality of the activity in general?

    5 26 17 4.3

    10.4%54.2

%35.4

%

General Evaluation (Scale of 1 to 5)

Other Training Activities

500 justice system operators participated in a training program directed towards judges and prosecutors in Ecuador.

JSCA is participating in a distance learning training program along with the World Bank Institute and the General Council of the Judicial Branch of Spain. It is directed towards participants

in Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela and will feature the participation of 150 people.

The JSCA Training Area has an internship program for students, young professionals and senior professionals. At

least 22 people from 10 countries in the region and 3 European countries have held internships at JSCA.

Main Projects

Networks and Bilateral Cooperation

Red OSC, a network of civil society organizations that work on issues of justice in the Americas composed of 31 organizations

from 17 countries in the region

Ibero-American Association of Public Prosecutor’s Offices

Summit System of Supreme Court Chief Justices of Ibero-America

Association of Public Defender’s Offices

JSCA has signed 29 cooperation agreements with public institutions in the justice sector (Supreme Courts, public

prosecutor’s offices, public defender’s offices, and others) in countries throughout the Americas.

JSCA has signed work agreements with 8 private international institutions that conduct research in the area of judicial public

policy.

Main Projects

Local and International Events

• JSCA has participated in 171 events, 72 of which it has organized, co-organized and/or

sponsored.

• We have made presentations on our organization, programs and/or research

projects at 129 events in 19 countries in the region.

• Our seminars feature an average of 170 participants who come from countries all

over the region.

Three Key Goals

To generate and distribute instruments designed to improve the quality of available information on justice in the Americas.

3.

Main Projects

As a permanent and active distribution channel, JSCA is connected to the world through its Website, www.cejamericas.org. This tool concentrates and compiles all of the work that JSCA carries out in order to meet its three key goals.

The Website contains more than 1,114 documents, approximately 1,200 links, more than 300 news articles, information on 274 events

and 259 reviews of books and other publications from the 34 OAS member states.

104,701 sessions were logged on the Website in 2003, an average of 287 visits per day, 11% more than in 2002.

19,061 visits were logged during the first quarter of 2004, an average of 311 visits per day.

The Site contains 600 pages.

Generation and Distribution of Information

Access to and Improvement of Judicial Information

One of the JSCA’s fundamental strategic objectives is to improve the quality and accessibility of information on judicial systems and provide incentives for its use in

decision-making and control processes. We believe that there is a need to break the vicious circle by which

information is not used because it is of poor quality and information is of poor quality because it is not used. We

are carrying out the following actions in this area :

Analyzing the judicial information needed by those who govern the institutions, academic, the media, and users in general.

Collecting, verifying and distributing existing information.

Elaborating instruments that allow for the development of adequate information systems.

Developing seminars, workshops and courses to promote the use of information.

Generating an Index of Online Access to Information.

Main Electronic and Print Publications

o Sistemas Judiciales Journal

Main Electronic and Print Publications

o Nexus Newsletter

34 issues of the Nexus Newsletter, which is distributed to 5,028 people, have been published by JSCA.

Main Electronic and Print Publications

o Other Publications

Plan for 2004

• JSCA will continue to work to meet its three

key goals.

• The consultations made with the people with whom we work on a regular basis in various

countries in the region were used to elaborate a plan for future activities. This document was submitted to our Board of

Directors for review.

Financial Report

Financial Situation 2003

SOURCES % %

USAID -78.396 729.010 54% 672.388 52% -21.774

CIDA 124.094 9% 136.239 11% -12.145

FORD 6.000 98.500 7% 85.466 7% 19.034

IDB 40.000 3% 18.988 1% 21.012

Government of Chile 80.000 6% 80.000 6% 0

HEWLETT 72.927 100.000 7% 86.057 7% 86.870

OTHER SOURCES 183.414 179.638 13% 214.650 17% 148.402

TOTAL 183.945 1.351.242 100% 1.293.788 100% 241.399

FINAL

BALANCE

INITIAL

BALANCEINCOME EXPENDITURES

Composition and Distribution of Expenditures

Sistemas Judiciales2%

Seminars, courses and events

23%

Honoraria24%

Auditing1%

Equiment 2%

Overhead13%

Meetings of the Board of DIrectors

0%

Distribution0%

Other4%

Publications1%

Research25%

Travel expenses and per diem

5%

Composition and Distribution of Expenditures

Operating Costs46%

Activities54%

Projection for 2004

SOURCESINCOME

%EXPENDITUR

ES

%

     

INITIAL BALANCE 241,399 13%    

USAID 700,000 38% 700,000 41%

CIDA 520,000 29% 507,855 30%

FORD 37,500 2% 56,534 3%

IDB 60,000 3% 81,012 5%

Government of Chile 80,000 4% 80,000 5%

HEWLETT 100,000 5% 186,870 11%

OTHER SOURCES 80,000 4% 80,000 5%

TOTAL 1,818,899 100%1,692,27

1100%

• To diversify sources of funding by securing commitments to support JSCA activities from the institution’s member states.

• To give more stability to JSCA’s financing (the current projects are very short-term, which affects the profile of JSCA staff members).

• To increase available resources for JSCA activities, which will allow the institution to increase its geographic coverage and the areas in which it works.

MAIN CHALLENGES

• We will continue and deepen our efforts to finance a significant part of our activities through projects and the sale of services.

• However, we cannot finance all of the organization’s operational costs and the production of the public goods (i.e. information) that it offers.

• We therefore require support from member states that can use their financial contributions to demonstrate political support for the work that we are doing. This support can come in the form of:

– Direct voluntary contributions to JSCA – The creation of local funds for supporting judicial modernization

activities to which national institutions linked to justice could apply. JSCA would control the distribution of said funds

JSCA’s Proposal

Our Presence in the Region

Argentina: Follow-up, Statistics, Red Osc, Access, Children’s Rights

Uruguay: Children’s Rights

Paraguay: Red Osc, Follow-up

Brazil: Discrimination, Red Osc, Children, Court Management

Bolivia: Follow-up, Red Osc

Venezuela: Follow-up, Red Osc

Trinidad and Tobago: Follow-up

Barbados: Follow-up

Eastern Caribbean: Follow-up, Statistics

Jamaica: Follow-up

Dominican Republic: Red Osc, Discrimination

Haiti: Red Osc Honduras: Gender, Follow-up, Red Osc

Belize: Statistics

Mexico: Red Osc, Training, CPC Reform Support

United States: Red Osc, Children’s Rights

Chile: Follow-up, Gender, Women’s Rights Tribunals, Statistics, Red Osc, Access, Children’s Rights

Peru: Red Osc, Access, Children’s Rights, Training for Judicial Operators

Ecuador: Follow-up, Gender, Red Osc, Training for Judicial Operators

Colombia: Discrimination, Statistics, Red Osc

Panama: Red Osc

Costa Rica:Follow-up, Statistics

Nicaragua: Follow-up

El Salvador: Follow-up, Statistics, Red Osc

Guatemala: Follow-up, Gender, Statistics, Red Osc

www.cejamericas.org