Judicial Independence

Abstract

For analytic clarity, judicial independence is best thought of as a concept that captures a variety of features of a judicial system. One common, and useful, approach is to associate judicial independence with the ability of judges to, in practice, make decisions the outcomes of which are not dictated by extrajudicial pressures. In this spirit, research on judicial independence has examined a number of topics, two of which are (i) the origins and determinants of political support for the judiciary and (ii) the consequences of maintaining judicial independence for economic performance. Original research on political support for the judiciary focused on how a system of separation of powers can constrain judicial independence. Current research is turning the question around, examining the role courts play as a component of a system in which policy is made collectively by political institutions. Research on the relationship between judicial independence and economic performance originally examined whether greater judicial independence is associated with higher levels of economic growth. Current research is expanding the focus to evaluate the conditions under which independent courts reinforce the stability of democratic government. As research on judicial independence moves forward, it should focus on further conceptual clarification, the study of independent courts as complements to other parts of a system of governance (rather than competitors to policy makers), and leveraging current advances for theoretically driven measurement of these concepts.