Projects / Programmes
Ideology at Courts: The Influence of Judges' World-views on Their Decisions
| Code |
Science |
Field |
Subfield |
| 5.05.00 |
Social sciences |
Law |
|
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| S110 |
Social sciences |
Juridical sciences |
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| 5.05 |
Social Sciences |
Law |
Courts, judicial decision-making, measuring ideology on courts, discoursive concept of law
Researchers (9)
Organisations (2)
Abstract
The underlying hypothesis of our research is that judges are active members of the society and have well-defined personalities, with their own views about social issues, values and beliefs. Although they act as experts based on legal norms, their individual ideological profile influences both their interpretation of the content of these legal norms and their decisions. The prevailing approach to law in Slovenia, but also elsewhere in Europe, still denies these facts and insists on the objectivised understanding of law and judicial decision making. Contrary to this prevailing model, the purpose of the proposed project is to perform the first in-depth research into ideological profiles of members of the judiciary in Slovenia, while adapting the methodology and interpretation to take into consideration the usual criticism against similar research in other countries.
The research will include the following consecutive content sections:
1. Operationalising the concept of ideology and designing a multidimensional model for assessing ideological profiles.
2. Applying the model for assessing the ideological profiles of individual judges to a sample of Constitutional Court rulings. The results of the model will be double-checked against a detailed content analysis of selected relevant separate opinions (both dissenting and concurring) of individual judges.
3. Using the assessed ideological profiles for empirical analyses: designing and testing a model for prediction of court decisions; determining the decisive ideological dimension for individual court decisions; stability of ideological profiles through time; the link between political composition of the parliamentary majority that appointed each Constitutional Court judge and the judge’s assessed ideological profile; pilot testing of alternative theories on factors affecting judges’ decisions that do not put ideology in the forefront.
4. Normative analysis and recommendations for improving the functioning of the Slovenian judiciary in the sense of strengthening fundamental court values, like independence, impartiality and responsibility of courts and individual judges; concrete institutional proposals for improving the appointment procedure for Constitutional Court judges, and the system of appointments and promotions of judges in other courts.
The objectives of the research are theoretical (a multidimensional analytical model for assessing ideological profiles), applicative (application of the model and using its results for empirical analyses) and normative (recommendations for institutional changes).
The research will result in a completely new perspective on the legal system for Slovenia, supported by original empirical findings about the role of ideological profiles. An important new contribution to the Slovenian (and also European) legal expertise will be the interdisciplinary approach to law as a value and discourse-based concept, combining the knowledge and methodology from law, economics, sociology and political science. We expect the results to encourage further research and thus contribute to a new interdisciplinary line of social science research.
Significance for science
1. The research will result in a completely new perspective on the legal system in Slovenia, supported by original empirical findings about the role of ideological profiles. An important new contribution to the Slovenian (and also European) legal expertise will be the interdisciplinary approach to law as a value and discourse-based concept, combining the knowledge and methodology from law, economics, sociology and political science. We expect the results to encourage further research and thus contribute to a new interdisciplinary line of social science research.
2. Research measuring the influence of the judge's ideological profile is also rare in the context of the European Union. Thus the results will be original and relevant for the broader European legal expertise as well. The reasons for the scarceness of similar research in Europe lie deeper than the mere traditionally controversial character of the relationship between law and politics, and relate to the very paradigm of law on which the legal tradition in a particular area is based. Such research is therefore more common in the USA, where it is part of the so-called political approach to law.
3. Our research will thus serve as an original scientific bridge between the American and the continental European approach. The American approach, analysing the common law system, is essentially different in many elements from the continental European approach, so it is impossible to simply copy the findings from the US. Our theoretical model will thus, although initially modelled on the American ones, be necessarily adapted into an originally European, more specifically a Slovenian model, which has not been produced so far. The originality of the results will thus stem from original methodology.
Significance for the country
1. Our research will introduce to the Slovenian context an entirely new and a more comprehensive understanding of the role of law and judges in a society and establish a multidisciplinary approach to research and conceptualisation of this topic. A better understanding of the factors influencing judges’ decisions and their appropriate evaluation will contribute to greater social legitimacy of court rulings and to a more qualified public and political debate on normative arrangements concerning judiciary. This is especially important for Slovenia where the judiciary is faced with constant and increasing public distrust in their work.
2. Trust in judiciary and stability of the legal framework have a direct impact on the economy, as they reduce the uncertainty and transaction costs of doing business. It is not a rare occasion in Slovenia that business companies initiate constitutional review of legislation. A large body of research has demonstrated a clear correlation between the functioning of the rule of law, and courts in particular, and the economic performance of countries and businesses. The latter require a stable and predictable business environment, including a timely and fair resolution of commercial disputes in courts. Our research will contribute to developing such an environment by its findings on court decision making and its normative recommendations.
3. Similar can be said of a wider circle of stakeholders and individuals in a society, who find their human and other basic constitutional rights to be violated by certain legal acts. A higher quality, effectiveness and trustworthiness of judiciary are thus also an important objective of the government's overall (not only economic) development policy.
4. Research results and its normative recommendations may help improve the institutional organisation of the judiciary. The social relevance of the research thus lies foremost in its contribution to a better regulation of the basic relations in the society in both normative (institutional regulation of the judiciary) and practical terms (appointment and promotion procedures for judges, improving the jurisprudence).
5. Awareness-raising of professional and general public: the potential for impact of the theoretical and empirical research results will be enhanced by their ongoing dissemination not only in the leading national and global scientific literature, but also in the Slovenian professional journals and in popular presentations of finding by members of the research team in general media.
Most important scientific results
Final report
Most important socioeconomically and culturally relevant results
Interim report,
final report
