https://soundcloud.com/capimpactca/the-judicial-council-and-judicial-branch-policymaking

The judicial branch of California government engages in policymaking through the Judicial Council.

The Judicial Council is chaired by the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court. It pursues a number of different goals, including: providing access, fairness, and diversity in our court system; ensuring independence and accountability of the judiciary; modernizing the management and administration of the state’s court system; ensuring quality of justice and service to the public; and providing adequate, stable, and predictable funding to ensure a fully functioning branch of state government.

While the Council employs a staff to assist it, it also relies heavily on a number of advisory bodies and task forces. It has six internal committees, which include: the Executive and Planning Committee, the Judicial Branch Budget Committee, the Judicial Council Technology Committee, the Legislation Committee, the Litigation Management Committee, and the Rules Committee. There are also more than two dozen task forces that assist the Judicial Council as well.

It should be noted that our Judicial Council has been at the forefront of many of the historical reforms in terms of the judicial administration of our state’s court system, such as trial court unification – where we unified our municipal and superior courts. The Council also maintains annual reports on workload information related to the courts, their annual outlook reports, different court statistics, and legislative reports in terms of legislation/new laws that have affected the court system.

With the historical materials, the Judicial Council provides a valuable wealth of information about the state’s court system, as well as its operation and administration of justice here in the state of California.

You can read the full transcript of today’s podcast here.