Quality Assessment of the Services Delivered by a Court, Based on the Perceptions of Users, Magistrates, and Court Officials

Abstract

This paper aims to measure the quality of the services delivered by a court by assessing the satisfaction of court users and service providers, i.e., magistrates and court officials. For that purpose, a case study was carried out and data were collected by means of a questionnaire based on the SERVPERF instrument, in which perceived service quality is measured, considering court users, magistrates, and court officials’ perceptions of post-service performance. One hundred and fifty-eight questionnaires were successfully returned. An in-depth interview was later conducted to the court administrator to gain a richer understanding of the results achieved and ask follow-up questions. Overall, findings revealed that court users, magistrates, and court officials clearly have a positive view of the services provided, although improvement is needed, particularly in the court’s facilities and technological equipment. The current research sheds some light on the potentialities and difficulties of assessing service quality in the judiciary and contributes to the validation of the SERVPERF instrument in this context.