6 - ‘In a Technical and Political View’

Summary

This chapter examines the context and consequences of the Registry ReVision project from the perspective of its management ideas and practices. While championed by Herman von Hebel, newly elected registrar of the court in 2013, ReVision was a long-term project of institutional transformation fostered and executed by external consultants, internal experts, judges, and staff members. While taking place in a wider context of court contention and dissent from certain quarters, ReVision told a uniquely managerial story about the court’s deficiencies and future organisational needs in ways that prioritised certain contexts, problems, and voices over others. And although its effect was to depoliticise the court, it simultaneously offered this effort as the extent and limit of the court’s own political ambitions. By surveying the actors, practices, and documentation of ReVision, this chapter offers an account of the reorganisation as a project of professional comfort.