Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-lrblm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-11T00:45:34.148Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Does De Jure Judicial Independence Really Matter?

A Reevaluation of Explanations for Judicial Independence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2022

James Melton  and
Tom Ginsburg
James Melton
Affiliation:
University College London
Tom Ginsburg*
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
*
Contact the corresponding author, Tom Ginsburg, at tginsburg@uchicago.edu.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The relationship between de jure and de facto judicial independence is much debated in the literature on judicial politics. Some studies find no relationship between the formal rules governing the structure of the judiciary and de facto judicial independence, while others find a tight correlation. This article sets out to reassess the relationship between de jure and de facto judicial independence using a new theory and an expanded data set. De jure institutional protections, we argue, do not work in isolation but work conjunctively, so that particular combinations of protections are more likely to be effective than others. We find that rules governing the selection and removal of judges are the only de jure protections that actually enhance judicial independence in practice and that they work conjunctively. This effect is strongest in authoritarian regimes and in contexts with checks on executive authority.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Law and Courts , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , Fall 2014 , pp. 187 - 217
Copyright
© 2014 by the Law and Courts Organized Section of the American Political Science Association. All rights reserved.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

We thank Jeff Staton, Brad Epperly, two anonymous reviewers, and the editors at the Journal of Law and Courts as well as seminar participants from the 2013 Joint Sessions Workshop of the European Consortium for Political Research and the Department of Political Science, University College London, for helpful suggestions on previous versions of this manuscript. We also thank Stefan Voigt, Bernd Hayo, and Jerg Gutmann for sharing their cleaned and expanded version of the Comparative Constitutions Project’s judiciary data. Replication data are available at http://comparativeconstitutionsproject.org/download-data/.

References

Abbasi, Hossein. 2013. “Judicial Independence, Constitutions and Politicians.” Unpublished manuscript, Department of Economics, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ARDA. 2005. Association of Religion Data Archives. Department of Sociology, Pennsylvania State University. http://www.thearda.com.Google Scholar
Beck, Thorsten, Clarke, George, Groff, Alberto, Keefer, Philip, and Walsh, Patrick. 2001. “New Tools in Comparative Political Economy: The Database of Political Institutions.” World Bank Economic Review 15 (1): 165–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Camp Keith, Linda. 2002a. “Constitutional Provisions for Individual Human Rights, 1977–1996: Are They More than Mere ‘Window Dressing’?” Political Research Quarterly 55 (1): 111–43.Google Scholar
Camp Keith, Linda. 2002b. “Judicial Independence and Human Rights Protection around the World.” Judicature 85 (4): 195–200.Google Scholar
Camp Keith, Linda, Tate, C. Neal, and Poe, Steven C.. 2009. “Is the Law a Mere Parchment Barrier to Human Rights Abuse?” Journal of Politics 71 (2): 644–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carey, John. 2000. “Parchment, Equilibria, and Institutions.” Comparative Political Studies 33:735–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cingranelli, David L., and Richards, David L.. 2010. “The Cingranelli Richards (CIRI) Human Rights Database Coding Manual.” http://ciri.binghamton.edu/documentation.asp.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clague, Christopher, Keefer, Philip, Knack, Stephen, and Olson, Mancur. 1999. “Contract-Intensive Money: Contract Enforcement, Property Rights, and Economic Performance.” Journal of Economic Growth 4 (2): 185–211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elkins, Zachary. 2010. “Diffusion and the Constitutionalization of Europe.” Comparative Political Studies 43:969–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elkins, Zachary, Ginsburg, Tom, and Melton, James. 2009. The Endurance of National Constitutions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elkins, Zachary, Ginsburg, Tom, and Melton, James. 2012. “Constitutional Constraints on Executive Lawmaking.” Unpublished manuscript, University of Texas, Austin.Google Scholar
Elkins, Zachary, Ginsburg, Tom, and Melton, James. 2014a. The Comparative Constitutions Project. http://www.comparativeconstitutionsproject.org/.Google Scholar
Elkins, Zachary, Ginsburg, Tom, and Melton, James. 2014b. “Contents of Authoritarian Constitutions.” In Constitutions in Authoritarian Regimes, ed. Ginsburg, Tom and Simpser, Alberto. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Esarey, Justin, and Lawrence, Jane. 2012. “Testing Interaction Hypotheses: Determining and Controlling the False Positive Rate.” Unpublished manuscript, Department of Political Science, Rice University.Google Scholar
Feld, Lars P., and Voigt, Stefan. 2003. “Economic Growth and Judicial Independence: Cross-Country Evidence Using a New Set of Indicators.” European Journal of Political Economy 19 (3): 497–527.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferejohn, John. 1999. “Independent Judges, Dependent Judiciary: Explaining Judicial Independence.” University of Southern California Law Review 72:353–84.Google Scholar
Ferreres Comella, Victor. 2009. Constitutional Courts and Democratic Values. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freedom House. 2010. “Freedom of the Press Country Ratings.” http://www.freedomhouse.org.Google Scholar
Garoupa, Nuno, and Ginsburg, Tom. 2009. “Guarding the Guardians: Judicial Councils and Judicial Independence.” American Journal of Comparative Law 57 (1): 201–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilbert, Michael D. 2013. “Judicial Independence and Social Welfare.” Michigan Law Review 112:575–625.Google Scholar
Ginsburg, Tom. 2010. “Judicial Independence in East Asia: Implications for China.” In Judicial Independence in China, ed. Peerenboom, Randall. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hafner-Burton, Emilie, and Tsutsui, Kiyoteru. 2005. “Human Rights in a Globalizing World: The Paradox of Empty Promises.” American Journal of Sociology 110:1373–1411.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayo, Bernd, and Voigt, Stefan. 2007. “Explaining De Facto Judicial Independence.” International Review of Law and Economics 27:269–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayo, Bernd, and Voigt, Stefan. 2010. “Mapping Constitutionally Safeguarded Judicial Independence—a Global Survey.” Working paper, Social Science Research Network. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1724696.Google Scholar
Hayo, Bernd, and Voigt, Stefan. 2013. “Explaining Constitutional Change: The Case of Judicial Independence.” Working paper, University of Hamburg, Germany.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Helmke, Gretchen, and Rosenbluth, Frances. 2009. “Regimes and the Rule of Law: Judicial Independence in Comparative Perspective.” Annual Review of Political Science 12:345–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herron, Erik S., and Randazzo, Kirk A.. 2003. “The Relationship between Independence and Judicial Review in Post-Communist Courts.” Journal of Politics 65 (2): 422–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heston, Alan, Summers, Robert, and Aten, Bettina. 2009. Penn World Table. Vers. 6.3. Center for International Comparisons, University of Pennsylvania. http://pwt.econ.upenn.edu.Google Scholar
Honaker, James, and King, Gary. 2010. “What to Do about Missing Values in Time Series Cross-Section Data.” American Journal of Political Science 54 (3): 561–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Honaker, James, King, Gary, and Blackwell, Matthew. 2009. “Amelia II: A Program for Missing Data.” User’s manual, Harvard University. http://gking.harvard.edu/amelia/.Google Scholar
Howard, Robert M., and Carey, Henry F.. 2004. “Is an Independent Judiciary Necessary for Democracy?” Judicature 87 (6): 284–90.Google Scholar
Jackson, Vicki C. 2007. “Packages of Judicial Independence: The Selection and Tenure of Article III Judges.” Georgetown Law Journal 95:965–1008.Google Scholar
JuriGlobe, . 2010. World Legal Systems Research Group. JuriGlobe, University of Ottawa. http://www.juriglobe.ca/index.php.Google Scholar
Larkin, Christopher M. 1996. “Judicial Independence and Democratization: A Theoretical and Conceptual Analysis.” American Journal of Comparative Law 44 (4): 605–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Law, David S. 2008. “A Theory of Judicial Power and Judicial Review.” Georgetown Law Journal 97:723–801.Google Scholar
Law, David S., and Versteeg, Mila. 2010. “The Evolution and Ideology of Global Constitutionalism.” California Law Review 99:1163–1257.Google Scholar
Linzer, Drew, and Staton, Jeffrey. 2012. “A Measurement Model for Synthesizing Multiple Comparative Indicators: The Case of Judicial Independence.” Paper presented at the 2011 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Seattle, September 1–4.Google Scholar
Marshall, Monty, and Jaggers, Keith. 2010. “Polity IV Project: Political Regime Characteristics and Transitions, 1800–2004.” Center for International Development and Conflict Management, University of Maryland.Google Scholar
McAdams, Richard. 2005. “The Expressive Power of Adjudication.” University of Illinois Law Review 2005:1043–1122.Google Scholar
Moustafa, Tamir. 2007. The Struggle for Constitutional Power in Egypt. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moustafa, Tamir, and Ginsburg, Tom, eds. 2008. Rule by Law: The Politics of Courts in Authoritarian Regimes. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ordeshook, Peter C. 1992. “Constitutional Stability.” Constitutional Political Economy 3 (2): 137–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pemstein, Daniel, Meserve, Stephen, and Melton, James. 2010. “Democratic Compromise: A Latent Variable Analysis of Ten Measures of Regime Type.” Political Analysis 18 (4): 426–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ramseyer, J. Mark, and Rasmusen, Eric B.. 2003. Measuring Judicial Independence: The Political Economy of Judging in Japan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rios-Figueroa, Julio. 2011. “Institutions for Constitutional Justice in Latin America.” In Courts in Latin America, ed. Helmke, Gretchen and Rios-Figueroa, Julio, 27–54. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rios-Figueroa, Julio, and Staton, Jeffrey K.. 2011. “An Evaluation of Cross-National Measures of Judicial Independence.” Working paper, Emory University.Google Scholar
Silverstein, Gordon. 2008. “Singapore: The Exception That Proves Rules Matter.” In Rule of Law: The Politics of Courts in Authoritarian Regimes, ed. Moustafa, Tamir and Ginsburg, Tom. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Smithey, Shannon I., and Ishiyama, John. 2002. “Judicial Activism in Post-Communist Politics.” Law and Society Review 36 (4): 719–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Staton, Jeffrey K. 2011. Judicial Power and Strategic Communication in Mexico. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tate, Neil C., and Camp Keith, Linda. 2009. “Conceptualizing and Operationalizing Judicial Independence Globally.” Unpublished manuscript, Department of Political Science, University of Texas at Dallas.Google Scholar
Toharia, Juan. 1975. “Judicial Independence in an Authoritarian Regime: The Case of Contemporary Spain.” Law and Society Review 9 (3): 475–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vanberg, Georg. 2005. The Politics of Constitutional Review in Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Voigt, Stefan, Ebeling, Michael, and Blume, Lorenz. 2007. “Improving Credibility by Delegating Judicial Competence—the Case of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.” Journal of Development Economics 82 (2): 348–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weingast, Barry. 1997. “The Political Foundations of Democracy and the Rule of Law.” American Political Science Review 91 (2): 245–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar