Revue - Droit et société n°118-2024 - 132

João Paulo Dias et al.
When writing a decision, I try to make sure I'm making it as correct and well-reasoned as
possible, to avoid appeals. It takes me longer, but this is what motivates me. My motivation
does not come from numbers, from completing a lot of cases, but from feeling that I'm doing
something well. That's what gives me encouragement and motivation, including with regard
to productivity, because I feel like I'm doing the right thing.
- LX.Judge.01
In addition to pointing to the relationship between pace and performance
assessment, several interviewees alluded to the transformations that court proceedings
have undergone over time. As the next interviewee points out, they now
involve a wider network of actors or criminal associations, they are bigger and
more complex, and these variables should also be integrated into the performance
evaluation system.
In the past, it was more common to have criminal cases where there was only one person
doing the stealing or trafficking. Today we are faced with situations where there is a larger
web of people involved, and this creates complexities in terms of evidence gathering and
proof assessment. Cases have grown more complex regardless of the type of crime involved.
- LX.Judge.08
Work intensity is closely related to workload as far as courts are concerned,
with the " numbers " reached by court proceedings having a high impact on the
working capacity and quality of the professionals involved. Therefore, there is
an evident normalization of the narrative according to which professionals must
meet the demands of professional evaluation, in light of which productivity is the
major criterion to be taken into consideration.
III. 3. Time and Intensity: Dynamics and Diverse Impacts
The analysis of the means of working time and work intensity by profession
(Figure 4) and sex (Figure 5) provides different results. While there are statistically
significant differences by profession, these differences are not statistically
relevant in terms of sex or legal area of practice. The major differences concern
the functions of each profession.
The abovementioned flexibility of judges' and public prosecutors' work arrangements,
combined with their different roles and responsibilities, can explain
the working time and work intensity differences among the three judicial professions.
Judges and public prosecutors tend to work overtime and on weekends
more frequently than court clerks: 70% or more of judges and public prosecutors
claim to work always/frequently overtime (78.3% of judges and 69.7% of public
prosecutors); and 72.2% of judges and 57.2% of public prosecutors claim to work
always/frequently on weekends to meet the required deadlines; while most of the
court clerks do not work or only sometimes work overtime (62%) or on weekends
(85.5%) to meet the required deadlines.
568 ■ Droit et Société 118/2024
Revue - Droit et société n°118-2024

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