Dirección de Gestión y Modernización de la Justicia, Ministerio de Justicia, Chile (DGM)

Chile - Leah & Apoovra & Teresa

Semester: 2011 Fall

Students: Leah Kang, Apoorva Patel, Teresa Napoli

The Dirección de Gestión y Modernización de la Justicia (DGM) is an arm of the Ministry of Justice in Chile. Its main functions are to integrate a modern and managerial vision of justice reform and to evaluate, coordinate, implement, and monitor those reforms undertaken by the Ministry.

In response to a perception that wide sectors of the population still feel discriminated in their access to justice, the DGM has decided to implement four pilot projects in the city of Santiago focused on providing access to a multi-door model of dispute resolution. This system includes three “doors”: (1) a collaborative option (mediation and conciliation); (2) an adjudicative option (arbitration and referral to the local judge in charge of community disputes); and (3) a social services option.

The DGM has contracted HNMCP to evaluate this multi-door dispute resolution system, drawing on relevant literature as well as similar programs in the U.S. and elsewhere.  The evaluation will examine what happens to a case in each stage of the program from processing to evaluation to assignment to one of the three “doors.” It will focus especially on the collaborative options of mediation and conciliation, analyzing how the general multi-door model impacts the functioning of the collaborative option.

Our Work

  • Literature review of multi-door and neighborhood justice systems implemented in the U.S. and elsewhere
  • Analysis of the pilot projects in Santiago
  • Field research among relevant actors at the coordinating (DGM) and local (the Santiago pilots) levels

Final Product

  • A report that compares and contrasts similar programs with the Chilean pilot programs, recommends improvements to the Chilean program, and proposes an evaluation methodology for the pilot program at the conclusion of year 1 operations
  • A special chapter in the report will contain a critical analysis of the collaborative “door” within the pilot programs

 

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