Daniel Kettiger

Court Management: A Young Field of Public Management

Court management as a field of research was the result of several factors, for example the debate on New Public Management (NPM) or the activities of the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ). The Permanent Study Group (PSG) XVIII justice and court administration began its activities in 2012. The participants have so far been researchers and practitioners from courts and from judicial administrations. This mix has proved to be interesting and there was a lot of successful knowledge sharing. The strategy for PSG XVIII will be to continue to combine forces with established groups and networks in Europe and beyond.

The Position of the Public Prosecution Service in the New Swiss Criminal Justice Chain

In Switzerland, a major reform of the justice system in 2011 saw the harmonisation of the various cantonal criminal procedure systems and the reorganisation of criminal prosecution and criminal justice chain for the whole of the country. By abolishing the position of examining magistrate, public prosecution services were given a new position in the criminal justice chain, now being put in charge of the entire preliminary proceedings. The independence of prosecutors was increased, at least as far as concerning all legal acts carried out in the course of the criminal prosecution process. A number of cantons had previously used different prosecution models and there was also a considerable change in the means of cooperation between the public prosecution services and the police. Research by the authors shows that from the prosecutors’ point of view, the new system seems to be a success.

Strategische politische Steuerung als Instrument zur Krisenprävention

The article focuses on how to prevent crises. It addresses strategic political steering as an instrument for crisis prevention. The article provides an overview of strategic political management as well as risk management theories in order to develop principles for the strategic management. The information is partly derived from a study conducted in 2009 by the authors for the Parliamentary Control of the Administration (PCA) of the Swiss Federal Assembly.