Institutional trustworthiness, Transformative judicial education and transitional justice : a Palestinian experience

Abstract

Using Palestine as its case study, this chapter posits that judicial trustworthiness represents an important condition for transitional justice to take hold and that judicial education can nurture judicial trustworthiness. Judicial education thus constitutes an ameliorating factor of the type outlined by El-Masri, Lambert and Quinn in the introduction to this volume. We begin by briefly distinguishing among trust, distrust and trustworthiness and explain the importance of judicial institutional trustworthiness. We then turn to judicial education as an ameliorating factor. Laying out the elements of a judicial education model designed around the concept of human dignity that we developed in the Palestinian context, we explain why this model of judicial education was particularly suited to nurturing judicial institutional trustworthiness. Our analysis draws on our own experiences developing and delivering judicial education programming focused on human dignity in Palestine between 2005 and 2012; 26 interviews with Palestinian judges who participated in our judicial education programme, and interdisciplinary scholarship from pedagogy, access to justice, trust/distrust/trustworthiness and transitional justice. Although we argue that judicial education can nurture judicial trustworthiness, we end with a note of caution. The Palestinian experience reinforces that judicial education can ameliorate efforts to nurture trustworthy national courts, but, contrary to the assumptions that are often made by development experts, education is necessary but not sufficient to foster institutional or political change. Ultimately, the Palestinian experience points to the inadequacies of pursuing rule of law programming, judicial reform and judicial education in the absence of transitional justice.