VALDOSTA — Within a matter of weeks recently, Dr. Joseph Staats started work as an assistant political science professor at Valdosta State University and traveled on a United Nations mission to counsel the supreme court of the Latin American nation of Ecuador.
With the backing of the U.N. Development Program, which works with emerging nations in developing economic, social and governmental institutions, Staats traveled to Quito, Ecuador’s capital. There, he met with the nation’s highest judicial body, comparable to our Supreme Court, though Staats was careful not to make too many comparisons to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Instead, he put Ecuador in context with the court systems of its Latin America neighbors.
Latin American court systems fall into Staats’ field of research specialty. His doctoral dissertation research explored the court systems of South America’s Uruguay, Chile and Argentina.
In 2004, he was a consultant to Uruguay’s Supreme Court of Justice. He was an expert member of a panel for a Montevideo, Uruguay conference on stemming domestic violence and child abuse throughout Latin America. He has also been a lecturer at University of Uruguay School of Law and has spoken to the National Bar Association of Uruguay as well as published articles on the subject.
In addition to his research into Latin American courts, he brings another level of law expertise.
Before seeking, and earning, his doctorate from the University of California in Riverside, Staats spent 20 years practicing law in California. In meeting with these various Latin American groups, he brings both the expertise of his research and the experience of being an attorney.
Earlier this year, when the U.N. wanted someone to speak with the relatively new Ecuador Supreme Court and national prosecutor’s office, it discovered Staats through an article that quoted his work. The U.N. sought out Joe Staats and created the Ecuador conference for him.
The thrust of Staats’ recommendations is that Latin American court officials must understand and, in turn, translate to their citizens that, “improving and establishing a democracy depends on having a first-class court system,” he says. Staats emphasizes: “Civil society must be more involved in improving courts and this improves the chances of a democratic government.”
While he kept the majority of his recommendations pinned on the court systems of neighboring Latin American nations rather than risk losing his audience by making too many comparisons to the U.S. legal system, Staats did advocate the case-law system which is prevalent in the U.S. legal system.
In essence, case law is judges and attorneys referring to past court rulings in determining how to proceed in subsequent court cases.
Adhering to the precedents of case law is deemed controversial in Latin America, Staats says. Court officials are familiar with past rulings in their respective nations, but they do not consider past decisions as a framework for deciding a new court case.
In Latin American conferences, Staats recommends that a case-law system is a more efficient manner of court procedure because it sets a series of precedents in how a nation’s laws are interpreted.
As a field, political science, Staats suggests, is also starting to better understand the importance of creating efficient judicial systems to the governmental health of developing nations.
“Judicial reform is a political process,” Staats says. “A nation must have the involvement of the societal and governmental components to develop a fair judicial system.”
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Dr. Joe Staats is an assistant Valdosta State University political science professor. Recently he counseled the developing Supreme Court of Ecuador.
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Professor counsels Ecuador’s top court
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