Judicial assistance to small jurisdictions in the Commonwealth: the case for a special chapter and forum

摘要

The objective of this article is to make a special case for small jurisdictions when it comes to the question of judicial assistance by the establishment of a special forum, i.e. the establishment of a special chapter of common concerns with a vision and a road map relevant to the small jurisdictions themselves. It argues that judicial assistance to small states should go well beyond conventional judicial assistance focused on judicial personnel, including not only the conventional but also extending beyond. Conventional judicial personnel development should be coupled with institutional empowerment and system development if judicial assistance is to be of any real value to small states.Small states have specificities proper to themselves. Not to attend to those specificities whether in an up-front and/or complementary manner is to render whatever judicial personnel development programmes are given to them academic, theoretical and of little practical value in their context. Conversely, to address and to attend to those specificities will bring about the long-awaited institutional update and system development of their judiciaries and render judicial personnel development programmes relevant. Small states, by the very nature of their plight, have a right to be assisted in institutional update and systems development to the same extent that they have a right to be assisted in personnel development programmes. That right stems from a larger right: that is, to participate and join in the mainstream of the global justice system which is in the making. Many small states do not appear in that fast forward trend, as of today, trapped in their unique constraints.View full textDownload full textRelated var addthis_config = { ui_cobrand: "Taylor & Francis Online", services_compact: "citeulike,netvibes,twitter,technorati,delicious,linkedin,facebook,stumbleupon,digg,google,more", pubid: "ra-4dff56cd6bb1830b" }; Add to shortlist Link Permalink http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03050718.2011.621269