Settlement Adjudication and Judicial Responsiveness: The Choice between a Wide and a Narrow Model

תקציר

The chapter describes a range of judicial roles that have developed in Anglo-American law countries and Israel. These roles are implemented in a variety of judicial processes, commencing with traditional adversarial adjudication through settlement adjudication in which significant judicial efforts are made to conclude the case in an agreed solution, and up to judicial processes with therapeutic objectives. The chapter links the collaborative approach towards dispute resolution to changes that have impacted the judicial role and the manner in which that role is performed. It asserts that settlement judging may be pursued along a gradual continuum between a narrow model and a wide model. Each of these models presents a different measure of judicial responsiveness to considerations that go far beyond legal rights and duties in an attempt to address the underlying strata of the conflict. The narrow model expresses judicial responsiveness which is primarily limited to considerations of efficiency whereas the wide model relates to additional needs and interests, such as those involving personal relationships and community welfare. The chapter describes the characteristics of settlement adjudication in terms of both models and argues for the application of the wide model. It suggests that the wide model expresses a more comprehensive conception of the judge as a settler of disputes who displays a greater degree of judicial responsiveness and of judicial proceedings as having the potential to yield a variety of benefits.