Good Governance in the Hands of the Judiciary: Lessons from the European Example

Abstract

It is certainly well observed that the subject matter of good governance, by its mere terminology, constitutes a fairly recent evolution which has been, notably in the 1990’s, closely linked to the idea of giving a new impetus to development policy, in particular in Sub-Saharan Africa. The new terminology has received widespread interest which has made the political call for good governance a central feature of development policy^[1] ever since it has been put on the international agenda by a World Bank study in 1989.^[2] Despite a rising number of critics claiming this concept to be without any substance and asking whether it would be new after all,^[3] the idea of good governance has flourished ever since and has certainly evolved into a transnational concept of political leadership, a real leitmotiv for a common approach to the way how our global village should be governed.^[4] The incredible success story of the striving for good governance is, in my view, due to three cumulative aspects which certainly contributed a great deal to the general agreement that good governance is a concept without proper alternative: Firstly, the concept of good governance is self-evident. It needs nothing else but common sense^[5] to be understood: Entrepreneurs will not invest in unstable countries and people, whether entrepreneurs or not, will not wish to live there, if they can afford to go elsewhere.^[6] Secondly, the concept of good governance is sufficiently vague to absorb a great variety of political preferences as well as substantive differences. Its flexibility is most certainly the reason why it has met so little resistance and found so much support. And thirdly, it was issued at the right point in time when public opinion was profoundly marked by the experience of the revolutionary force of glasnost and the general inability of corrupt regimes around the world to meet today's challenges.^[7]