Ideological Voting on Chile's Constitutional Tribunal: Dissent Coalitions in the Adjudication of Rights

We did not see it coming: The unintended polarization induced by an institutional reform. The case of the Chilean Constitutional Tribunal

“…and, second, that the post-reform pattern shows greater dispersion. These results are consistent with observations from both Carroll and Tiede (2012) and Pardow and Verdugo (2015).…”

“…Furthermore, the evidence shows some differences between judges who followed a career-oriented path and those who come from an academic background, although it remains unclear whether ideology is also part of the explanation. First, based on the Tribunal's votes between 2006 and 2011, Carroll and Tiede (2012) find mild patterns of dissenting coalitions on ideological grounds, but concede that their observation period may be insufficient to make that claim. Focusing on decisions involving requirements against a presidential decree between 1990 and 2010, Pardow and Verdugo (2015) suggest that those disagreements are better explained by the fact that the 2005 reform introduced academics to replace career judges into the Tribunal.…”

The political determinants of judicial dissent: evidence from the Chilean Constitutional Tribunal

“…Compared with those with non-partisan backgrounds, there is an expectation that judges dissent more when they have backgrounds associated with political preferences. Ascertaining whether the dissent is due to divergence of political preferences, rather than just straight partisanship, would depend on the exact political and legal dispute faced by judges in each case, a question that is somewhat beyond the scope of this analysis, but has been analyzed to some degree in Carroll and Tiede (2012).…”

“…The dissents often provide lengthy reasons for disagreements with the majority opinion. Disagreements are over societal or political disputes such as the distribution of the morning after pill, or more mundane points of law, such as the jurisdiction of tax authorities (see Carroll and Tiede, 2012 for a discussion of some of these disagreements). The following sections present implications and analysis for the emergence of dissent at both the case and vote level.…”