Recipient government commitment is crucial to the potential success of World Bank (WB) funded judicial reform programmes. But how can commitment be effectively assessed? This paper by Human Rights First assesses the case of Peru and suggests that judicial independence is the most important measure of commitment. It argues that government commitment should be assessed before the Bank agrees to finance a judicial reform proposal. However, it acknowledges that commitment may be hard to determine.
Institutional reform is high on the World Bank’s agenda. Within this broad rubric, judicial systems and the independence of the judiciary are justifiably key areas of emphasis. But governments must take the lead in these efforts if they are to succeed. What are the real signs of commitment? Commitment may not be easily reflected in public events, especially where a government lacks the resources and the political clout to act decisively.
Peru is an indisputably clear case of a government that actively demonstrated its disdain for some of the essential ingredients for reform. Peru ought to have been a case easily identifiable as unsuitable for the Bank’s investment under any conceivably credible criteria. Peru’s actions spoke consistently in opposition to a healthy judiciary; no official statements should have been allowed to obscure their meaning.
- An early assessment of the suitability of a judicial reform project ought to include gathering and vigorously exchanging views with a wide range of societal actors.
- This could help reduce risks of project failure—and the waste of resources that entails—by exposing any faulty assessment of government commitment early in the project development process.
- In future projects in which judicial independence is a concern the Bank must honestly assess the degree to which a borrower government has taken concrete actions toward reform that is rooted in judicial independence.
In contrast to the World Bank’s decision to go forward with the Peru Project, its reaction to events afterwards was appropriate. It offers, perhaps, a model of how the Bank might execute a reasoned response to a government that fails to meet the required standard of commitment.
- The Bank’s monitoring of an evolving situation reflected an understanding that its decision to partner a government is more of a process than a singular event. It demands continuing oversight and a flexible set of responses.
- The Bank came to acknowledge that the government’s deeds were the most significant determinant of its suitability as a partner.
- By obtaining the policy letter the Bank built certain values into the Project’s approval procedure, laying an intelligent foundation for a subsequent decision that led to termination.
- The Bank achieved this by consensus, obtaining the signed commitments of all implementing partners to respect the values set forth in the letter.
- The Bank afforded the government a window of opportunity to demonstrate, once the stakes of non-compliance were clear, that it would take effective steps to salvage the Project.
- When it took what was ultimately the decisive step of postponing the Project, the Bank maintained an appropriately diplomatic face. But it conveyed an unmistakable message about the negative impact of Peruvian government attacks on judicial independence.
