Quantitative determinants of judicial performance: factors associated with the productivity of the courts

Abstract

Much has been discussed about the factors that would lead to an efficient or inefficient performance of the Brazilian Judiciary system, and part of the academic discussions regarding the field of administration of justice concerns the performance/ productivity antecedents related to courts and magistrates. In this sense, the main objective of the present work was to identify the determinant aspects of the productivity of the state Courts of Brazil and to test emerging variables that may help in this understanding. From an analysis of the reference literature, the variables already consolidated were defined: workload of the magistrate, amount of human resources (permanent servants and outsourced staff); and the emerging variables: lawyers and conciliators. The inference technique used was the Multiple Regression with panel data. After testing and validating the Regression model and assumptions, the hypothesis that the number of lawyers, the workload and the number of permanent servants and outsourced staff affect the productivity of the courts was confirmed. Finally, the results point in the opposite direction of the National Council of Justice (CNJ) guidelines; it was concluded that the number of conciliators is not related to the productivity of the courts.