Judiciaries in corrupt societies

Abstract

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The Role of the Judiciary in the Public Decision‐Making Process

“…3 Existing work dealing with corruption in the judicial branch has mostly focused on the corruption of law enforcers and its implications for the deterrence effect of laws (e.g., Becker and Stigler, 1974); on the related issues of optimal monitoring and compensation schemes for law enforcers (e.g., Polinsky and Shavell, 2001) and of optimal regulation in the presence of corrupt contract enforcers (e.g., Immordino and Pagano, 2010); and on the general contracting problem under judicial agency from a theoretical perspective (e.g., Bond, 2009). More closely related to our approach is the recent work of Priks (2011), who examines how judicial dependence influences corruption at different government levels in a model in which the central authority, the low-level officials and the judiciary are potentially corrupt. Similarly to our model, Priks (2011) argues that even highly corrupt (independent) judiciaries may reduce corruption.…”

“…More closely related to our approach is the recent work of Priks (2011), who examines how judicial dependence influences corruption at different government levels in a model in which the central authority, the low-level officials and the judiciary are potentially corrupt. Similarly to our model, Priks (2011) argues that even highly corrupt (independent) judiciaries may reduce corruption. The two works, however, differ in several respects.…”

“…Second, our model formalizes some relevant features that are commonly presumed to exert influence on judicial decision making, like the efficiency of courts. Lastly, Priks (2011) does not deal with the issue of judicial accountability, when independent judges are vulnerable to external influence.…”

Competition among officials and the abuse of power

“…Durham (2000) tests the double marginalization theory in an experiment and finds that competition with three firms eliminates the vertical externality.2 The model is based onShleifer and Vishny (1993) Priks (2010). uses a similar model to study a different topic, namely the relationship between different structures of the judiciary and corruption.3 For an experimental analysis of the sale of office, seeBüchner et al (2008).…”

Initiation of corrupt exchanges and severity of corruption

“…Both bribe givers and bribe takers in corrupt deals have to contend with the chances of getting caught and, upon apprehension, the expected punishment for corruption -apprehension without credible punishment is not very effective (see Banerjee, 1997; Becker, 1968;Becker and Stigler, 1974;La Porta et al, 1999;. These apprehension chances (probability of getting caught) and punishment might be set (exogenous) or the judicial mechanism itself might be corrupt (Benson, 1988;Goel and Nelson, 2007;Mookherjee and Png, 1995;Priks, 2011). In our initiation of corrupt exchanges and severity of corruption financial theory and practice 37 (2) 207-222 (2013) 211 analysis, the detection rates and punishments are assumed to be the same whether the bribe taker or the bribe giver moves first -the anti-corruption bodies in charge of checking corruption are mainly interested in reducing corruption and are generally less concerned with (or largely unable to detect) who initiated the corrupt deal.…”