Sector: Legal and Judicial Reform
Region: Europe
Funded by:
World Bank
Total Value: C$600,000
Partners and Counterparts:
Foundation for the Development of Legal Culture (FDLC)
Russia, Surveying and Evaluating Efficiency of Interaction between Courts and Mass Media: December 2010–December 2012
Project Description
This assessment project seeks to improve not only court media relations, transparency of courts, and policies advancing these goals—but also the underlying purpose of these exercises, namely public regard for the courts. The assessment of the transparency of courts need includes and highlights efforts to show the public the extent to which courts in Russia are becoming more user friendly institutions.
Agriteam assumed overall responsibility for project management and administration. It oversees the research on best Western practices pertaining to court-media relations. The Foundation for the Development of Legal Culture (FDLC), Agriteam’s partner in the EICMP, took the lead on all Russia-based research. Furthermore, the FDLC also has contracted the services of other Russia-based experts and companies required to conduct Project research. The work by the two partnering organizations in Canada and Russia transpires concurrently and is closely coordinated at all stages of the Project.
The Surveying and Evaluating Efficiency of Interaction between Courts and Mass Media under the Judicial Reform Support Project is a research and analysis initiative. The general approach used in this study was to undertake comparative research and analysis into judicial relations with both the media and the public, canvassing journalists, court press secretaries, court officials widely through survey questionnaires, and focused studies of selected regions through interviews. The three aspects of the Russian experience with courts, the media and the public that represent the primary research targets of this Project are: (i) court media relations; (ii) transparency measures (including websites of courts, electronic means of publishing court decisions); and (iii) the information policies of Russian judicial authorities, meaning the high courts and the Judicial Department. While each of these targets some of the research tools developed, they may have been used for more than one target.
The project aims to:
•Improve understanding of the underlying issues and causes for negative media coverage and, as a consequence, of the public image of the Russian courts.
•Improve understanding of the best practices, primarily those relevant and applicable within the Russian context, employed by the countries of Western Europe and North America to facilitate and carry out effective court-media relations.
•Develop a set of practical recommendations for the improvement of media coverage as well as of the public image of the Russian judicial system, which take into account and integrate the positive and negative aspects of the Russian experience as well as of the best Western practices.
•Monitor and evaluate the efficacy and applicability of the new recommendations in Russia.
The project has now implemented an assessment and evaluation of selected regions and developed a comparative analysis of Western best practices in the area of court media relations.
The third and final phase of the assignment is to monitor and assess the effectiveness of training programs for press secretaries in the Russian courts and to make final recommendations on the need for further reforms.