This WP takes the judicial system as its point of departure to examine different levels of justice-society relationships from the viewpoint of structured groups and collective actors. The goal here is to look within the State judicial system to the interactional dynamics between judicial institutions and actors and to the professional and social networks of judicial personnel. At the national level of the State justice system, both its structure and functioning are shaped by constant interaction between institutional actors at various levels of the ‘judicial chain’ (policing, prosecution, judgment, penal practice), which is, in turn, subject to change and reform as a result of varying public demands and attitudes towards justice. Examining the agency of collective judicial actors also necessitates further study of the intellectual, social and professional networks of justice: prosopography of justice personnel; processes of professionalisation and professional culture; (inter)national associations of magistrates, policemen, lawyers, jurists, etc.

Coordinator: Frédéric Schoenaers

Partners involved: UCL, UNamur, ULg, KULeuven, Cesdip (UVSQ)

Research projects

• Jolien Vanschoenwinkel, Trust in Justice. Degree and Antecedents of Trust in the Criminal Justice Chain
• Marloes Callens, Interorganisational Trust and Distrust within the Belgian Juvenile Justice System
• Joséphine Bastard, Justice and Prison Relationships: ‘The Decision-Making Process of the Sentence Implementation Court’
• Alice Croquet, The Organisational Career of the Area Security Plan: Elaboration and Circulation of a Norm

Some realisations of WP1b

• Workshop "Acceleration in the judiciary in France and in Belgium" (Liège, 16 May 2013, co-organisation ULg-Cesdip)
• WP1b International conference, Modernisation of the Criminal Justice Chain: The Importance of Trust, Cooperation and Human Capital (Brussels, 30-31 October 2014)
• GERN Seminar, "Le travail invisible au sein de la chaîne pénale (Liège, 2 December 2016, co-organisation ULg-INCC-Cesdip)