A business-backed study urges a makeover of the state’s court system, including online access to court records and electronic document submissions, a full accounting of courthouse spending and revenues, and a realignment of judicial districts to reflect population changes.
The four-part analysis by the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry (LABI) is being released this month to provide a blueprint for state officials to modernize the judiciary. The state court system lags behind the executive and legislative branches in terms of transparency and the public’s understanding of its workings, the report’s executive summary states.
“More and more, we find that decisions made in courtrooms have a profound effect on policy,” the report says. “And yet the judiciary is the one branch of our government about which the public knows the least.”
A key area of concern, according to the report, is that the boundaries of the state’s 42 district courts and five appeals courts have never been fully redrawn. The districts remain based on census figures from 1990, even though Louisiana has recorded dramatic population shifts since then, the report says.
“Despite these massive population shifts and even recent trends showing a reduction in population in many areas of our state, the size of our judiciary has never been reduced, expanded in areas of growth or realigned in a meaningful way,” the report states. “At the same time, caseloads for judges are consistently declining, with district court and courts of appeal filings down 22% and 35% respectively over the past 10 years.”
The report also calls for upgraded software tools on all court websites to help reduce costs for litigants and improve efficiencies.
“An initial step should include establishing a task force to develop plans for the implementation and oversight of the courts’ transition to E-filing and E-document management systems, with a hard deadline for the transition,” the report says.
Lana Venable, executive director of Louisiana Lawsuit Abuse Watch, said the LABI report illustrates how improving public trust and confidence in the judicial system will enhance its overall effectiveness.
“Providing stronger ethics rules and enforcement, working to promote more transparency in funding and expenditures of the judiciary, and considering possible realignment of current judgeships are all positive steps toward increasing this level of trust,” Venable said in an email to the Louisiana Record. “Further, we believe these kinds of systemic changes would lead to increased accountability and encourage more businesses to invest in Louisiana, creating new jobs and opportunities for our citizens.”
The report calls for more work in the area of holding judges to a high bar when it comes to legal standards and ethical behavior. The state Supreme Court has not yet put in place prohibitions on judges’ outside income sources or required the reporting of gifts from attorneys and litigants, the report says.