The Design of an Assessment Framework for e-Justice Systems.

The studies on e-justice, that is Information Systems (IS) developed in justice systems, scarcely focus on the topic of their evaluation. Some scholars, such as Contini and Lanzara, and Kallinikos,1 advocate adopting a set of design principles (such as system modularization) to ensure quality performance of e-justice systems (EJS).2 However, measuring systems' performance has thus far been overlooked. Scholars have missed measuring a dependent variable because there is no evaluative framework through which to analyze EJS. Bernoider and Koch made some attempts at evaluating e-justice.3 They analyze two Austrian e-justice systems (the Legal Information System (LIS) and the Elektronischer Rechtsverkehr (ERV), an e-filing system). These scholars evaluated the two systems' performance using the DeLone and McLean model.4 However, the model was not designed specifically for e-justice evaluation, and so it does not consider that e-justice evaluation also needs to take into account the fact that justice systems in a democratic society should support specific values, such as equal access, transparency, respect of privacy, and impartiality. Therefore, IS used in the justice sector should also support these values. E-justice evaluation should be based on a model that integrates IS evaluation methodology with variables that measure the capacity of e-justice systems to support judicial values. In this respect, the DeLone and McLean model by itself is not entirely appropriate for grasping the complexity of e-justice assessment because its focus on efficacy as a measure of IS performance is too limited for the e-justice context. The above arguments reflect the tenets of the Public Value School5 and its criticism of the efficacy-oriented strategies of New Public Management6 (NPM).7 The Public Value School criticizes the NPM approach, stating that the evaluation of public-sector reforms should consider their effects on private economic exchanges and efficacy, as well as their support of collective preferences and values.8 On these grounds, the evaluation paradigms of public reforms elaborated in the context of the Public Value School integrate managerial strategies of assessment, which focus on efficiency, with strategies of assessment that focus on public-values support.9 On this basis, this study proposes the design of an e-justice assessment framework that integrates efficacy-oriented variables with variables that focus on the judicial values that e-justice should support. In so doing, it fills a gap in the literature that, as anticipated, only focuses on efficacy-oriented variables when assessing e-justice systems. The first part of the study introduces the main methodologies used for IS assessment that are a part of the IS and e-government approaches (see Measuring IS Performances below) and explores the DeLone and McLean model, which is the basis for the e-justice assessment framework. The second part discusses judicial values that justice systems and e-justice systems should support. Each value is analyzed based on the literature and is transposed to the e-justice context (see Justice Systems Values and e-Justice, page 57). In the final part, the paper addresses the assessment framework, integrating the DeLone and McLean model variables with a set of variables that operationalize e-justice's capacity to support judicial values (see A New Framework for e-Justice Evaluation, page 61). Here, I introduce each variable's relative indicators and proposed operationalization. The methodology consists in both quantitative and qualitative methods of analysis.