Institutions and Regulation in the Modern State: The Rise of Judicial Self-Governance in the New Millennium

A vast majority of court systems in the world are managed by the executive government, but a small and growing number of jurisdictions, including Victoria, South Australia and the Australian federal courts, have transitioned to judicial management of the court system. This paper analyses the emergence of new institutions of judicial self-governance in Australia and overseas, with a particular emphasis on the establishment and regulation of judicial councils and judicial management boards inside judge-managed courts. The paper also provides an introductory overview of the emerging scholarly discipline of judicial self-governance by identifying a range of unexplored institutional design questions and research directions for consideration and adaptation by Australian scholars who may be interested in examining the regulation of judge-managed institutions from a legal, political, institutional, managerial or constitutional perspective.