In the shadow of the judge

The involvement of judicial assistants in Dutch district courts

Nina Holvast

• Publisher: Eleven International Publishing
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9789462747456
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Law Theory & Practice
• Index: Law

In recent years the notion of the judge as an autonomous decision-maker has been increasingly challenged. Correspondingly, research has expanded to study the influence of various agents on judicial decision-making; however, some of these agents still receive little attention from the academic community. This book focuses on one such agent: the judicial assistant. Based on fieldwork conducted at two Dutch district courts, In the shadow of the judge discusses the involvement of judicial assistants in judicial decisionmaking and the potential consequences of their involvement on the adjudication process. By demonstrating the multifaceted involvement of these assistants and their influence on the judgments, the author highlights the necessity for a clearer understanding of this topic - particularly in a civil law context. Dissertation. [Subject: Criminal Law, Civil Law, Court Procedure]

Table of contents

• 1 Introduction
• 2 Method of the empirical research
• 3 Reflections on the Dutch judicial assistance model from an inter-jurisdictional perspective
• 4 Normative viewpoints on the involvement of judicial assistants: the rule of law versus the managerial perspective
• 5 Collecting the materials for reaching the judgment: the run up to the hearing and the hearing
• 6 Deciding the judgment: deliberations and writing the judgment
• 7 Factors that determine the involvement and impact of judicial assistants
• 8 Conclusions and reflections on the involvement of judicial assistants
• Acknowledgements
• Summary
• Samenvatting
• Bibliography
• Appendix 1 - Key information regarding the observed hearings
• Appendix 2 - Conducted research activities per hearing
• Appendix 3 - Interviewed respondents during the fieldwork (anonymised)
• Appendix 4 - Interviewed respondents additional interviews (anonymised)
• Appendix 5 - Members of the Steering committee
• Appendix 6 - Checklist for assessing the memo
• Appendix 7 - Checklist for assessing the hearing and deliberation sessions
• Appendix 8 - Checklist for assessing the draft- and final judgments of the hearing
• Appendix 9 - Example of an item list used for the interviews with respondents involved in the hearing
• Appendix 10 - List of codes used for the analysis in Atlas.ti
• Appendix 11 - Hierarchy of the Dutch courts
• Appendix 12 - Overview of literature regarding heuristics, and cognitive and social biases in judicial decision-making