"Apart from hard statistics, greater transparency in the conduct of judicial business, coupled with a judge’s interest in her reputation and desire for prestige, improves judicial efficiency. This has been documented in several industrial countries. When judges have open trials, lawyers, litigants, the media, and the general public observe their conduct. A review of the impact of televising judicial proceedings in New York state found that such scrutiny raises the efficiency of judges by one-third while at the same time increasing the quality of their judgments...

The Makati Business Club established the CourtWatch project in 1992. They sent two observers, usually law students, to courtrooms over an extended period of time. The observers rated judges after each visit, based on direct observation and surveys of lawyers and prosecutors involved in the case. The ratings included the judge’s familiarity with the law, as well as the conduct of the proceedings, on such measures as promptness, efficiency, and courtesy. Soon after the program began, the media noticed that judges’ behavior had changed and that the efficiency of the court had risen significantly.

Overall resource levels are often uncorrelated with judicial efficiency, but in cases of extreme underfunding, an infusion of resources can be effective. In Uganda, for example, backlogs were caused by shortages of stationery and were solved when another court donated paper...

Duration of appointment. When judges have lifelong tenure, they are both less susceptible to direct political pressure and less likely to have been appointed by the politicians currently in office. Independence is particularly important when judges are adjudicating disputes between citizens and the state (for example, freedom of speech issues and contract disputes). Therefore, the study focuses on the tenure of two different sets of judges: those in the highest ordinary courts (the supreme courts), and those in administrative courts, which have jurisdiction over cases where the state or a government agency is a party to litigation. Countries in which judges are independent from the influence of the state also tend to be countries where the judiciary is free from interference by private parties. The tenure of judges matters in both cases. Peru is frequently rated as the country with the least judicial independence. Former President Fujimori kept more than half of judges on temporary appointments from 1992 to 2000. [Ed: One can contrast this with what the PSC Microchip claims, that the Supreme Court of the USA is not independent because they're appointed by Presidents]...

While wage increases would not eliminate high-level corruption in the judiciary, they may eradicate small-scale bribery [Ed: Emphasis mine]. Judges will have less need to supplement their income. To date, however, there has been little systematic evidence on this issue."

--- World Bank World Development Report 2001, The Judicial System