Abstract

By way of a survey among 80 Dutch administrative law judges, this paper uses principal-agent theory, as well as contextual factors, to explain judicial assistants’ influence on adjudication. Principal-agent theory has, thus far, been applied mainly to the setting of the US Supreme Court—to test the hypothesis that judicial assistants influence justices’ decisions less, as the political attitudes of assistants and justices differ more. To create a more universal theory to explain judicial assistants’ influence, we have derived five other hypotheses from principal-agent theory, which can also be used to explain judicial assistants’ influence in other court settings. As expected, we find that judges’ managerial role orientation, trust in judicial assistants and favourable risk-benefit perception of assistants’ input increase assistants’ influence. Contrary to our expectations, we did not find judges’ rule of law role orientation and relative experience of assistants to be correlated with assistants’ influence. Likewise, none of the contextual factors—panel judgments (vs. single-judge judgments), complexity of court cases and time pressure—are correlated with assistants’ influence. While three perceived risks of defection explain the influence that judges allow assistants, contextual factors do not. As such, our study shows that—when operationalised differently—principal-agent theory can be fruitfully applied to settings apart from the politicised US Supreme Court.

Highlights

  • Academic attention has been directed toward the collegial feature of judicial decision-making.[1]

  • Our study shows that—when operationalised differently—principal-agent theory can be fruitfully applied to settings apart from the politicised US Supreme Court

  • Apart from the theoretical aim to contextualize and enrich principal-agent theory for the explanation of judicial assistants’ influence, our study aims to provide insights that are relevant for legal practice

Read more

Summary

Introduction

Academic attention has been directed toward the collegial feature of judicial decision-making.[1] The literature on the influence of colleagues on judicial-decision-making, predominantly focuses on the role of judge-colleagues. Other co-workers of judges —namely, the judicial assistants that assist judges in preparing and processing cases—have. Audiences: A Perspective on Judicial Behavior, Princeton University Press 2006, pp. The Effects of Collegiality on Judicial Decision Making. University of Pennsylvania Law Review 151 (5) pp. The collegiality facet is essential to strategic models of judicial decision-making, see L. The Choices Judges Make, CQ Press, Washington DC 1998; L. The Strategic Analysis of Judicial Decisions, Annual Review of Law and Social Science 6, pp. The Strategic Analysis of Judicial Decisions, Annual Review of Law and Social Science 6, pp. 341–358

Objectives
Methods
Results
Discussion
Conclusion
Full Text
Published version (Free)

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call