New understandings of the relationship between courts and society

Over the last two decades a renewed attention has been devoted to the interplay between society and justice. This has focused on costs and multiplied inequalities and has inspired a "turn of the research agenda" toward the analysis of the the demand of justice. By demand of justice, it is meant the different components of the society – based on the distribution of age, education, health problems, unemployment rate. Each social group experiences a specific type of legal problem (people with health problems have high propensity to be impeded by physical barriers, to experience problems with medical doctor professions, etc.). Typology coupling types of social groups with possible barriers to access justice systems have been developed as a first step to have a grid with which the actual organization of the justice service should be monitored and assessed.
A conceptual turn is consequently promoted in policy design and implementation. Underneath the entire reasoning a new idea of the justice system appears. The justice system – rather the court system – is part of the public governance. Comparative analysis and case studies addressing the pathways unfolded in reform processes are welcome contributions to the panel.