Purpose

In most Latin American countries, the provision of legal assistance to the vulnerable population is carried out by public defender's offices (PDOs), agencies composed of state-paid career lawyers. The aim of this paper is to explain the cross-country variation in regarding the autonomy levels of Latin American PDOs.

Design/methodology/approach

A scale to measure autonomy was built allowing access to the autonomy of sixteen different PDOs. Data were gathered through content analysis of the statutes that organize the PDOs and analyzed through qualitative comparative analysis (QCA).

Findings

The results demonstrate different levels of autonomy among Latin American PDOs. Furthermore, conditions related to institutional and social contexts, such as levels of income, human development, democracy, and the complexity of the political systems, presented sufficient relationships for high levels of autonomy.

Research limitations/implications

It was not possible to interview representatives of the PDOs analyzed. This could help the interpretation of the legislation applied to PDOs, as well as the observation of regulations that may not have come to the knowledge of researchers. Thus, analyses were made according to what was observed in the legislation of each country. It is also noteworthy that this research covered only nationwide PDOs, not involving subnational PDOs. In addition, the data have only internal validity, and cannot be extrapolated to the population.

Practical implications

The creation of a scale to measure the autonomy of public agencies stands out as an original comparative data set of PDOs covering a large amount of Latin American countries.

Social implications

This study was able to characterize the institutional arrangements of sixteen national PDOs, allowing broad comparison between legal aid agencies for the vulnerable population in a region of the world that still suffers from high levels of poverty.

Originality/value

The article presents possible explanations on the variations of PDOs' level of autonomy, showing PDOs' idiosyncrasies, whose autonomy is influenced also by social context variables, in view of the nature of their mission. It should be noted that factors related to the social context are not widely considered by the literature on autonomy of public agencies.

中文翻译：

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公设辩护人机构的自治：拉美国家的系统比较

目的

在大多数拉丁美洲国家，为弱势群体提供法律援助是由公设辩护人办公室 (PDO)，即由国家支付的职业律师组成的机构提供的。本文的目的是解释关于拉丁美洲 PDO 自治水平的跨国差异。

设计/方法/方法

建立了一个衡量自治的尺度，允许访问 16 个不同 PDO 的自治。通过对组织 PDO 的法规的内容分析收集数据，并通过定性比较分析 (QCA) 进行分析。

发现

结果表明拉丁美洲 PDO 之间的自治程度不同。此外，与制度和社会背景相关的条件，如收入水平、人类发展、民主和政治制度的复杂性，为高度自治提供了充分的关系。

研究限制/影响

无法采访所分析的 PDO 的代表。这有助于解释适用于 PDO 的立法，以及观察研究人员可能不知道的法规。因此，根据每个国家/地区的立法中观察到的内容进行了分析。还值得注意的是，这项研究仅涵盖全国性 PDO，不涉及次国家级 PDO。此外，数据仅具有内部有效性，不能外推到总体。

实际影响

创建衡量公共机构自主性的量表是一个原始的 PDO 比较数据集，涵盖了大量拉丁美洲国家。

社会影响

这项研究能够描述 16 个国家 PDO 的制度安排，从而可以对世界上仍然遭受高度贫困的地区的弱势群体的法律援助机构进行广泛比较。

原创性/价值

本文提出了对 PDO 自治水平变化的可能解释，展示了 PDO 的特质，鉴于其使命的性质，其自治也受到社会背景变量的影响。应该指出的是，有关公共机构自治的文献并未广泛考虑与社会背景相关的因素。