Institutional Reform and the Judiciary: Which Way Forward?

This paper presents some general lessons in institution building that has relevance for reform of the judiciary. The paper emphasizes the value of simplicity in design commensurate with country capacity, the importance of innovation/experimentation, and of economic openness in effective institution building. It underscores how the incentives of individuals depend on both the details of institutional design within the judiciary itself but also some critical institutions external to the judiciary. Finally the paper argues for the need to ground reform initiatives on a solid empirical and comparative approach. It illustrates some of these issues by drawing on a recent project conducted by the World Bank and others.