The Supreme Court in American Democracy: Unraveling the Linkages between Public Opinion and Judicial Decision Making

2008 ◽  
Vol 70 (2) ◽  
pp. 293-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
Micheal W. Giles ◽  
Bethany Blackstone ◽  
Richard L. Vining
Author(s):  
Miguel Á. Benedetti ◽  
M. Jimena Sáenz

Resumen: En las últimas décadas, las audiencias públicas realizadas en foros judiciales han sido señaladas como una de las innovaciones más importantes en las prácticas de los tribunales de altas instancias latinoamericanos. Estas audiencias prometen una renovación en los modos de pensar las tensas relaciones entre el poder judicial –especialmente su facultad de revisión de constitucionalidad– y la democracia a partir de la apertura del espacio judicial al diálogo y la participación de la ciudadanía, de las modalidades de intervención judicial para la protección de derechos, y de los aspectos simbólicos y políticos de herramientas que usualmente se reconocen como meramente procesales. A la luz de esos objetivos de renovación dialógica, pragmática y simbólica de las prácticas judiciales que abrieron las audiencias, este trabajo testea su grado de concreción a través de un estudio de los efectos de las audiencias públicas realizadas por la Corte Suprema de Justicia argentina en sus decisiones desde finales de 2004 hasta el 2017 inclusive.Palabras clave: Corte Suprema, audiencias públicas, participación ciudadana, deliberación, decisión judicialAbstract: The implementation of public hearings in judicial fora in the last decades has been considered from different perspectives one of the most important innovations in the practices of Latin American Courts. They promise a renovation in the ways of accommodating the tension between the role of Courts (especially their function of judicial review) and democracy; in the models of judicial decision making, and they point to the symbolic dimension of procedural rules and practices. This paper presents a study that tests the accomplishment of these promises tracing the impact of public hearings in the decisions of the Supreme Court of Argentina in the period between 2004 and 2017.Keywords: Supreme Court, public hearings, public participation, deliberation, judicial decision making.  


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hubert Smekal ◽  
Jaroslav Benák ◽  
Monika Hanych ◽  
Ladislav Vyhnánek ◽  
Štěpán Janků

The book studies other than purely legal factors that influence the Czech Constitutional Court judges in their decision-making. The publication is inspired by foreign models of judicial decision-making and discusses their applicability in the Czech environment. More specifically, it focuses, for example, on the influence of the judge’s personality, collegiality, strategic decision-making or the impact of public opinion and the media. The book is based mainly on interviews with current constitutional judges.


2008 ◽  
Vol 33 (03) ◽  
pp. 779-803 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Frymer

This essay reviews the recent volume edited by Ronald Kahn and Ken I. Kersch, The Supreme Court and American Political Development(2006), as well as the broader literature by law scholars interested in American Political Development (APD). The Law and APD literature has advanced our knowledge about courts by placing attention on the importance of executive and legislative actors, and by providing political context to our understanding of judicial decision making. But this knowledge would be more powerful if it would embrace the broader APD field's orientation toward the importance of state and institutional autonomy for understanding politics and political change. Law and APD scholars could go further in examining the ways in which courts and judges act institutionally, and how the legal branch as an institution impacts American politics and state-building. In doing so, Law and APD scholars would contribute not only to our understanding of judicial decision making but also to our understanding of the place and importance of courts in American politics.


2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 422-453 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas R Gray

Abstract State supreme court justices are often the final arbiters of cases in their jurisdictions. Yet, in states that grant governors the power to selectively reappoint supreme court justices, justices’ independence is limited. These governors are able to monitor justices’ decisions and are empowered to remove justices whose jurisprudence conflicts with the governor’s preferences. This power gives governors substantial influence over judicial decision-making by justices eligible for another term on the bench. I test this proposition on an exhaustive set of state supreme court criminal appeals from 1995 to 2010, and show that votes by justices who need to be reappointed covary with executive preferences, and more than votes by justices ineligible for reappointment. These effects are stable across time within a justice’s term so long as the serving governor may one day be their reappointer. I also show that these shifting individual votes lead to changes in outcomes for defendants.


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