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The politics of implementation of the judicial council model in Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 December 2019

Pablo Castillo-Ortiz Open the ORCID record for Pablo Castillo-Ortiz [Opens in a new window]
Pablo Castillo-Ortiz*
Affiliation:
Lecturer in Law, University of Sheffield, S37NDSheffield, UK
*
E-mail: p.castillo-ortiz@sheffield.ac.uk
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Abstract

Currently, at least three approaches to judicial governance coexist in the European continent: the judicial council model, the courts service model, and the Ministry of Justice model. Although doctrinal and case-specific literatures abound on this topic, examples of cross-country studies explaining choices on these models of judicial governance are rather scarce. More particularly, we lack so far knowledge on how different factors interact in leading to the implementation of the judicial council model. This is striking, given the importance of judicial councils for the operation of the rule of law. Furthermore, explanations on the choices of models of judicial governance are essential to understanding the intricate issue of the political rationalities underlying macrolevel design of judicial institutions. Using qualitative comparative analysis and focusing on European liberal democracies, this article contributes to the literature in the field. It is shown that judicial councils are created when postauthoritarian countries implement new constitutions either in romanistic law countries or in countries subject to Europeanizing pressures.

Keywords

judicial councilsjudicial governanceEuropeanizationQCA

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
European Political Science Review , Volume 11 , Issue 4 , November 2019 , pp. 503 - 520
Copyright
© European Consortium for Political Research 2019 

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