How e-government and paperwork automation contribute to fighting petty corruption in judicial systems

Corruption in the judicial system breaks the basic principle of equality before the law and deprives people of their right to a fair trial. Money and influence may decide how cases are ruled and which cases are granted or dismissed in a corrupt judicial system. Literature usually classifies corruption into two main categories depending on who participates in corrupt actions: grand and petty. In the case of the judicial system, grand corruption occurs in the form of a lack of judges' independence and political control of the judges' appointments. Thus, governments can obtain favourable rulings because they control the justice system. On the other hand, petty corruption in justice systems occurs when litigants influence judges to obtain favourable rulings for their specific cases, usually through bribes. Literature has proposed that one of the main factors that cause petty corruption in the judicial system is the excessive personal contact between litigants, judges, and clerks. It has been observed that a recurrent problem in judicial systems is that besides the hearings, litigants must regularly attend the courts to carry out much paperwork, such as filing complaints, serving complaints, paying fees, and obtaining official transcripts of court records, among many other red tapes. This can lead to excessive familiarity and closeness between litigants and officials, which incentivises corruption. A standard recommendation to fight petty corruption is introducing technology to services delivered by the government. The idea is that by allowing the paperwork electronically and limiting human contact, there are fewer opportunities for petty corruption. Nevertheless, this hypothesis has not been tested for the case of judicial systems in comparative quantitative research. Using data on bribery in courts of justice from Transparency International and data on the use of technology in courts from the World Bank, I have tested if the automation of paperwork of judicial procedures affects petty corruption in the judicial systems. Even controlling the results by other factors of petty corruption (GDP, type of legal system, length of the trials, judges' salaries, judges' lack of independence), the model consistently shows that technology reduces the bribery rates in courts.