Mensurando a eficiência no sistema judiciário: métodos paramétricos e não-paramétricos

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2006

RESUMO

The purpose of this study is to assess the efficiency of the Brazilian Judicial System using parametric and nonparametric methodologies, which allows the construction of a benchmark to compare the performance between the Jurisdictions and/or Courts. The efficiency is one of Constitutional requirements for Public Administration (article 37 of Federal Constitution). The data base was provided by the Labor Justice and the Common Justice for the State of Rio Grande do Sul. As for the Labor Justice (Justiça do Trabalho), it was used a stochastic cost frontier model to compute efficiency indexes, for twenty-four Regional Labor Courts, during a 9-year period (from 1995 to 2003). The cost-function incorporates budgetary costs, settled cases, and other explanatory variables, including the ones for the efficiency model. Our results show that the cost structure is differentiated, as the Courts of First Instance present economies of scale and the Courts of Second Instance have constant returns of scale. However, the State of São Paulo is an exception. Due to its huge size, it functions as an outlier; it has already explored the economies of scale and hence shows diseconomies of scale, for the Courts of First Instance. Besides, when we include the Courts of São Paulo, the judicial backlog strongly contributes to increase inefficiency. Note also that there is convergence of the regional indexes during the period analyzed. Last, but not least, we observe an efficiency increase for most regions during the last part of the period considered; the extinction of the classist judges has, probably, contributed to such increases as well as improvements in information technology. Turning now to the analysis of the Common Justice, efficiencys indexes were calculated for one hundred and sixty-one Jurisdictions of the First Instance for Common Justice, for the Courts of the State of Rio Grande do Sul. Two nonparametric methods were used to compute the efficiency frontier: FDH (Free Disposal Hull) and the Expected Frontier of Order-m. The latter, may be seen as a robust version of the FDH frontier. In particular, it reduces the "curse" of dimensionality that affects nonparametric approaches and can cope with the presence of outliers, thus, producing more reliable results. The database includes information on the number of judges, members of staff and cases settled for civil and criminal cases. Our results show that efficiency losses are higher for the smaller courts. Such a result is due to the existence of increasing economies of scale that affects mainly those small jurisdictions. Finally, the determinants of the efficiency indexes were investigated by using characteristics of the Jurisdictions. Our analysis suggests that efficiency tends to increase with the specialization of the courts, the rate of litigation, the complexity of the local economy and with the existence of prisons in the Jurisdiction. The factors that reduce efficiency include the higher proportion of elderly people living in the Jurisdiction and the judicial backlog.

ASSUNTO(S)

free disposal hull bens públicos locais expected frontier of order-m free disposal hull economia common justice (brazil) setor público (brasil) fronteira esperada de ordem-m stochastic cost frontier efficiency justiça comum (brasil) labor justice (brazil) fronteira de custo estocástica sistema judiciário (brasil) sistema judiciário brasileiro - eficiência justiça do trabalho (brasil) local publics goods public sector (brazil) judicial services (brazil) economia do setor público

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