The Price of Judicial Economy in the US
Résumé
In the US, courts widely perceive that judicial scarcity is a common problem threatening the fair and timely resolution of disputes. Courts cite the attendant interest in judicial economy to justify interpreting the procedural and substantive law to reduce the judicial workload or accelerate the resolution of cases. But courts’ assumption that there are too few judges to handle the current caseload is hard to substantiate. First, it may not be possible to infer from excessive judicial backlogs or other perceived judicial deficiencies that a shortfall of judges is to blame. Second, even when one confidently perceives that a judicial backlog or other deficiency in a particular US court is attributable to a dearth of judges, one cannot fairly generalize from that example to other US courts and jurisdictions. And third, judgments about judicial deficiencies popularly attributed to the inadequacy of judicial resources may turn on contestable assumptions about judges and adjudication. Given these challenges to measuring the adequacy of judicial resources, one might be skeptical whether judicial economies are worth the costs they impose.
En EEUU, los juzgados generalmente perciben que la escasez judicial es un problema frecuente que amenaza la resolución justa y puntual de disputas. Los juzgados mencionan el interés intrínseco a la economía judicial para justificar la interpretación del procedimiento y del derecho sustantivo para reducir la carga de trabajo de los jueces o acelerar la resolución de los casos. Pero es difícil justificar la creencia de los juzgados de que no hay suficientes jueces para gestionar la carga de trabajo actual. Para empezar, quizá no sea posible deducir, de los excesivos casos pendientes de atender o de otras deficiencias judiciales percibidas, que de ello se pueda culpar a una escasez de jueces. En segundo lugar, aunque se pudiera percibir de forma fiable que el atraso en la resolución de casos u otras deficiencias de un juzgado en particular se puedan atribuir a una escasez de jueces, no se puede generalizar a partir de ese caso puntual a otros juzgados o jurisdicciones de EEUU. Y en tercer lugar, los juicios de valor sobre deficiencias judiciales comúnmente atribuidas a una inadecuación de recursos judiciales pueden dar lugar a creencias contestables sobre los jueces y el arbitraje. Con estas dificultades para medir el grado de adecuación de los recursos judiciales, hay razones para ser escépticos sobre si la economía judicial merece la pena de los costes que supone.
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