The judicial system in the State of Tennessee exists to serve
all people by:
? Providing a fair, independent, accessible, understandable and
efficient means of determining rights and resolving disputes,
? Preserving and interpreting the evolving rule of law, and
? Protecting all rights and liberties guaranteed by the United
States and Tennessee Constitutions.
It is appropriate to begin with a mission, and the statement
above is our draft of the judicial system's underlying goals.
The Supreme Court and the Judicial Conferences are free to write
their own versions, of course, but for now we present these goals
as guiding principles for our work.
In general, these are words that are often attached to the judicial
system, and they warrant some attention phrase by phrase.
To provide: By chance, "fair, independent, accessible, understandable and efficient" may have been listed in declining order of accomplishment. In public opinion, at least, the judicial system is sometimes considered fair and independent to a fault. It seems to create numerous barriers to accessibility and understanding, though, and a description of it as efficient would generally draw derision.
Sometimes the goals themselves can conflict. Rules of procedure
written to ensure fairness can undermine efficiency. Criminal
plea bargains, made for efficiency, can seem mightily unfair to
a victim.
Nevertheless, as abstract goals these five adjectives represent
a judicial system to satisfy almost anyone.
To preserve: Constitutional scholars could spend a career on the phrase preserving and interpreting the evolving rule of law. Should judges interpret the law, or merely apply it? Can law
be preserved that is also evolving? Still, the very notion of
common law is that it will constitute a dependable norm, a standard
to rely upon that offers both moral guidance and practical reference.
We will talk later of moving many disputes out of the traditional
judicial setting. Not every drug arrest and not every disputed
debt requires full adjudication by a high-seated arbiter. But
standards must exist, and despite the whirl of social and commercial
change, the normative role of the courts will remain important.
Indeed, the more rapidly other parts of life change, the more
the public will look to courts for resolution. New issues of biomedical
ethics, for instance, wind up in courts much quicker than they
wind up in legislatures.
To protect: Likewise, individuals can, and often do, have serious disagreements
over just precisely which rights and liberties actually fall under
constitutional protection. The resolution of those disagreements
is clearly a mission of the courts, however, and so is the daily
guardianship of those rights and liberties. Executives and legislatures
play a role, but history has placed this task most squarely on
the judicial branch of government.
From that mission statement for the present, we turn to the future.
We believe that a judicial system that aims merely to make small
improvements on the past is a judicial system that will fail.
The world with which the judicial system deals is not making small
changes.
Our vision of the future, therefore, is framed in ideals. We
do not precisely predict, for instance, that by the year 2025
all biases will be eliminated. We do have a vision of such a system,
and we believe that progress toward the vision is essential, for
the judicial system itself will be called upon to mediate all
sorts of new disputes that fall along factional lines.
These visions, then, are the guiding lights of the recommendations
that derive from them:
2. Problem solving will continue to include the resolution of disputes. The great majority of these disputes will be resolved by the system through innovative and informal processes.
3. Everyone will have full access to an affordable dispute resolution system. It will include related institutions that go beyond formal courts.
4. All biases in the system will be eliminated. Race, national origin, religion, gender, age, disability, financial means and geographic location will not affect the process. Fairness will permeate its decisions and actions.
5. The judicial system's organization will be simplified, uniform and coherent. Solving a problem will be accomplished in the same manner and with the same ease throughout the state.
6. There will be efficient use of all the judicial system's resources, including personnel, facilities, funding and time. New technology will be fully employed to increase access, decrease cost, emphasize objectivity and facilitate dispute resolution.
7. The judicial system will be sensitive, responsive and convenient. It will serve the public, and the public will know how to access and operate the system.
8. Decisions of the system will be understandable and sensible. Multiple forms of accountability will inspire public confidence in the processes, personnel and outcomes.
9. The judicial system will be proactive. It will cooperate with other social, educational and governmental entities. In both training and vision, its personnel will reach beyond the traditional bounds of the law.
10. The judicial system will be a separate, independent and co-equal
branch of government. It will exercise leadership in furthering
justice.
Again, these are visions, not forecasts.
Even if every recommendation in the pages that follow were adopted, the visions would not be entirely accomplished, because they depend on the perfectibility of fallible people.
Many of those people may have fears about the substantial changes
implicit in these visions. There are ways to ease those fears
and manage those changes to make them more acceptable.
We expect that much of the reaction to this report will focus
on means, those specific recommendations we offer in later pages.
They are fit subject for debate and disagreement.
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