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This report assesses the state and performance of the justice system of South Sudan through the JUPITER methodology. JUPITER uses qualitative and quantitative data to evaluate both de jure and de facto justice delivery metrics, identifying gaps in the legal framework and its implementation and creating comparable metrics to benchmark against similar indicators and other economies. The study focuses on the system¡¯s effectiveness in service delivery across three areas: Access to Justice, Efficiency, and Quality. JUPITER aims to identify strengths and areas of improvement in these key areas, serving as a basis for policy dialogue.

Judicial map reforms refer to an emerging stream of reform programs that attempts to improve the responsiveness of the justice system by adjusting the courts¡¯ location, size, and jurisdiction to demographic and socio-economic factors. Building on the ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳¡¯s experience in supporting client countries reform their judicial maps, this Brief lays out a framework for the design and implementation of such programs. It explains why countries attempt to revise their judicial maps, how they do it, and what types of policy interventions it entails. It also highlights the significance of judicial and demographic data, the need for clearly defined criteria, and the importance of communication and impact evaluation for the successful implementation of reforms.

This Brief examines the complex relationship between statutory courts and customary law systems, highlighting the historical context that fostered legal pluralism in many countries. It argues that attempts to replace customary practices with uniform legal frameworks have largely failed, suggesting instead that a harmonious coexistence of these systems can enhance access to justice and fairness. The Brief identifies practical mechanisms for engagement, emphasizing the need for context-sensitive approaches that recognize the ingrained nature of customary systems, especially in regions where they are preferred for their accessibility and cultural relevance. The Brief highlights several factors that should be considered when designing engagement, including state recognition; jurisdiction; articulation and documentation of customary law; referral pathways; appeal pathways; and oversight and accountability.

The Justice Pillars Towards Evidence-Based Reform (JUPITER) initiative is a tool developed by the ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳¡¯s Global Program on Justice and the Rule of Law to assess the effectiveness of justice systems in various countries. JUPITER evaluates judicial performance based on three key pillars: access, efficiency, and quality. It is designed to be standardized and flexible, allowing for country-specific assessments. The initiative focuses on areas with proven empirical links to outcomes, emphasizing the law and its application to identify implementation gaps. It assesses formal and customary justice institutions across entire countries, with examples from its application in Liberia and South Sudan. The Brief highlights the importance of access, efficiency, and quality in justice delivery and explains how JUPITER measures these aspects. It also discusses the potential for cross-country comparisons as more data is collected through the JUPITER assessments.

JUPITER is an initiative of the Global Program on Justice and the Rule of Law of the ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ Group (WBG). It is designed to be a universally applicable country-based framework for measuring the effectiveness of a country¡¯s judiciary. Its goal is to use data to identify strengths and weaknesses around key pillars of judicial effectiveness and to serve as an entry point for operational teams to develop a practical sequence of reform and capacity development actions in WBG operations. The output of the assessment is a study that provides the analytical underpinning for dialogue on justice reform and helps prioritizing efforts according to a country¡¯s needs.

Small claims courts and procedures can enhance the efficiency and accessibility of the justice system by streamlining judicial processes and increasing access to justice for individuals and small businesses. This note analyzes key components of effective small claims systems and offers recommendations for jurisdictions to refine their small claims systems based on empirical evidence from countries around the world.

This note explores how technology can enhance the efficiency, transparency, and accessibility of judicial service delivery by streamlining court processes, facilitating user access, and supporting the quality and transparency of judicial decisions. It also provides insights and lessons learned from country case studies that have implemented digital justice reforms.

Adequate budgeting of the judiciary is essential for effective justice delivery. This note presents trends in judicial budgets and judicial budgeting reforms. Courts account for less than 2 percent of total government expenditure on average, with significant portions dedicated to fixed costs like salaries. The findings emphasize the need for judicial leaders to continuously advocate for resources by demonstrating the judiciary¡¯s integral role in maintaining law and order, promoting democracy, and fostering societal stability.

In a first-of-its-kind JUPITER assessment, a standardized methodology is used to benchmark the state and performance of Liberia¡¯s judiciary against specific measures of effectiveness and to compare key features across countries. The study focuses on the effectiveness of the system in service delivery in three areas ¨C access to justice, efficiency, and quality ¨C and presents the main challenges that emerged from the empirical work to provide data-informed context-specific suggestions for reform.

With the benefit of a quarter century of empirical research, this paper finds that judicial reform is successful in improving court effectiveness when it coincides with or is motivated by periods of extraordinary politics. The paper studies the four most discussed ingredients of judicial effectiveness¡ªindependence, access, efficiency, and quality¡ªand finds that transformative judicial reform is most likely to succeed in countries emerging from conflict and violence or those that are pursuing accession to regional or international groups. 

By 2030, more than half of the world¡¯s extreme poor will live in countries characterized by fragility, conflict, and violence. In fragile and conflict-affected situations (FCS), justice systems face numerous challenges that hinder their effectiveness and prevent reconstruction and adequate service delivery, including lack of independence, heightened corruption, improper government influence, and systemic institutional and administrative problems. Strengthening the delivery of justice and improving people¡¯s capacity to access justice ensures the rule of law is equally enforced, thereby promoting social and economic development.

Evidence from high-income countries suggests that judges often exhibit in-group bias, favoring litigants that share an identity with the judge. However, there is little evidence on this phenomenon from the Global South. Collecting the available universe of High Court decisions in Kenya, this paper leverages the random assignment of cases to judges to evaluate the existence of in-group bias along gender and ethnic lines.

Bihar is widely regarded as one of India's poorest and most divided states. It has also been the site of many social movements that have left indelible marks on the state's politics and identity. Little is currently known about how structural inequalities have affected the functioning of formal systems of justice in the state. This paper uses a novel dataset of more than one million cases filed at the Patna high court between 2009 and 2019 together with a variety of supplementary data to analyze the role of religion, caste and gender in the high court of Bihar.

This paper summarizes the empirical evidence on the role of justice in economic development, conflict, and trust in institutions. It finds that justice inst