Judicial reform is the complete or partial political reform of a country's judiciary. Judicial reform can be connected to a law reform, constitutional amendment, prison reform, police reform or part of wider reform of the country's political system. Stated reasons for judicial reform include increasing of the independence of the judiciary, constitutionalism and separation of powers, increased speed of justice, increased fairness of justice, improved impartiality, and improving electoral accountability, political legitimacy and parliamentary sovereignty. Areas of the judicial reform often include: codification of law instead of common law, changing between an inquisitorial system and an adversarial system, changes to court administration such as judicial councils or changes to appointment procedure, establishing mandatory retirement age for judges or increasing the independence of prosecutors from the executive.

Examples

Judiciary Act of 1789

Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937

Judicial reform of Alexander II

Judicial Reform Committee of South Sudan

2023 Israeli judicial reform

2024 Mexican judicial reform

Protests against Polish judiciary reforms

Romanian judicial reform

Scottish judicial reform

The period from 2012 to 2015 is the period of the Lord Presidency of Lord Gill whose agenda was to overhaul and modernise a failing judicial system. His initial Report dated from 2009, and followed a lengthy public consultation. His opinion was that the system as it stood was "outdated, expensive, unpredictable and inefficient." The principal statutory changes were contained in the Courts Reform (Scotland) Act 2014.

Judicial reform in Ukraine