engleski

Supreme Courts in the 21st Century: Should Organisation Follow the Function?

In the first part of this paper, a few developments regarding the role and functions of the supreme courts that have become more prominent in the first decades of the 21st century are outlined. Some of those new functions are doubtful and stretch the institutional capacity of the supreme courts to successfully deal with them beyond the limits, therefore leading to the need for rethinking and, as the case may be, changing the course of development. On the other hand, some developments are ultimately inevitable and necessary, but invoke the need to adjust the organizational structures and introduce new organisational elements, while abandoning or reducing the existent ones. In the second part of the paper, as an illustration of the possible comparative and empirical research regarding the organisation of the supreme courts based on the quantitative data analysis, information supplied by the European national judiciaries to the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ) is examined. What will be extracted is the data on the number of the supreme court judges in national justice systems of the member states of the Council of Europe. Based on the comparison of data for selected sets of small, medium-sized and large European jurisdictions, some provisional conclusions regarding balance between the public and private functions in the European national supreme courts are suggested for further discussion and research.

supreme courts, organisation, function

nije evidentirano