An Informational Model of Constitutional Jurisdiction

Abstract

In shaping constitutional courts’ jurisdictions, societies must contend with the informational challenges associated with rule making and the distributive politics of granting courts jurisdiction over administrative lawmaking. Curiously, judges are often granted jurisdiction that seems to create a tension between their ability to acquire information about appropriate rules and to clearly articulate them. In particular, many courts handle the onerous burden of resolving thousands of routine, low-stakes cases of law application. We develop an informational model of judicial docket style that isolates a tension between information acquisition and quality rule writing and examine how that tension manifests in the incentives concerning jurisdiction style. Dockets that include a mix of law application and rule construction promote more informed judicial rule construction at the cost of lower-quality rules and a greater role of the judiciary in the day-to-day activity of the state. We develop implications for co...