At this week’s Tuesday Meeting, visiting scholar Alena McClure from Charles University in Prague delivered an outstanding lecture titled “Negotiating Authority: Prosecutors’ Perceptions of the Supervisory Role in Sentencing Decisions.”
Her talk explored how prosecutors perceive and exercise their influence on sentencing, and how their discretion is shaped — or constrained — by internal hierarchies within prosecutorial offices. Drawing on interviews with district and senior prosecutors, McClure examined the tension between professional autonomy and managerial oversight, showing how authority is continually negotiated through everyday practice.
Although grounded in the Czech system, her findings resonated strongly with the Slovenian experience and with broader reflections on how sentencing operates across different jurisdictions. The discussion highlighted the universal challenges of balancing autonomy, consistency, and control — precisely the kind of comparative insight that Sentrix seeks to uncover.
The presentation offered a vivid reminder that the people behind the rules often shape their meaning and implementation in practice.
It also sparked a lively debate about the human and institutional dynamics of decision-making — and provided an inspiring illustration of what the Sentrix visiting lectures are meant to foster: dialogue across systems, disciplines, and perspectives.
