8 - A Judiciary ‘Suspended’ in Transition? A Case Study of Portuguese Judges in East Timor

Summary

This chapter examines the arrangements for foreign judges in domestic courts of East Timor. Building on semi-structured interviews with Timorese judges and lawyers, foreign judges, United Nations Development Programme professionals and field observations, it engages with questions of why foreign judges were introduced as part of state-building initiatives and how they assisted Timorese judicial actors in strengthening judicial independence. The chapter, at the outset, provides a ‘thick description’ of the challenges that foreign and local judges had to traverse to strengthen the role of the judiciary locally. Relying on data from the field, it problematises the tensions between pursuing ‘ideal’ transnational standards of judicial independence and what may be ‘ideal’ for establishing the authority and legitimacy of courts in a state that is in transition. The chapter also highlights the shifting influence of foreign judges in East Timor.