Judiciary as a Bureaucratic Organisation and Its Public Value

Abstract

In 2021, India fell three positions in the Rule of Law Index released by the World Justice Project (2019). The India Justice Report 2020 shows the pathological disparity in access and administration of justice in India. Why is it that despite decades of judicial reforms, justice delivery in India continues to remain poor? This paper argues that judiciary is looked at and studied from the standpoint of its most visible dimension—judges and their decision-making, rather than the administrative machinery which facilitates this. This has tilted the judicial reforms discourse towards structures and procedures rather than functions and behaviours. Using the Public Value Theory, it is submitted that judiciary needs to be understood as a ‘bureaucratic’ and ‘public’ organisation which is not only tasked with justice delivery but also value creation. This is a novel approach which has not been deployed to study judicial organisations.