13:30 - 15:00
Panel Session 2
Room: Zoom
Chair/s:
Benjamin G. Engst, Daniel Naurin
Public Acceptance of Legal Opinions in an Age of Judicial Independence at Stake
Benjamin Engst, Thomas Gschwend
University of Mannheim, Mannheim

To what extent are judicial legitimacy and ideological views on controversial legal opinions linked? Judicial independents is under increasing pressure in European democracies. We (re-)evaluate the publics’ willingness to support highest courts within the European Union, to understand how possible changes in judicial legitimacy link to the publics’ willingness to accept judicial opinions. Subsequently, we analyze whether individuals regard judicial opinions as politically moderate or extreme in comparison to their own political views, while the support for highest courts varies.

In order to do so, we administered a survey-experiment in 12 Western and Central Eastern European countries. First, we evaluate respondents’ support for the highest courts using established legitimacy measures. Second, we ask respondents to place controversial societal opinions in a policy space and randomly prime them that those opinions where made either by highest courts or by representatives of the national government; we withhold any priming from a control group. Finally, we compare the placement of respondents to their political self-placement.

Our research design allows to assess variation in public support for the judiciary across countries. Moreover, we assess respondents’ perceptions of controversial opinions made by judicial institutions in comparison to other primers.

The findings have implications for our understanding of the publics’ reaction to the increasing threat on judicial independence. In comparing findings across countries, we are able to understand whether limiting judicial independence promotes the public rejection of controversial opinions. If this is the case then governments limiting the judiciary potential succeed when increasingly engaging in court-curbing.


Reference:
Fr-P6-02
Session:
Judicial independence and strategic decision-making in courts in an era of political polarization
Presenter/s:
Benjamin Engst
Topic:
EU Politics
Presentation type:
Oral presentation
Room:
Zoom
Chair/s:
Benjamin G. Engst, Daniel Naurin
Date:
Friday, 19 June
Time:
13:45 - 14:00
Session times:
13:30 - 15:00

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