Wenn Justitia die Hand aufhält – Ursachen und Folgen korrupter Justizbehörden

Empirical research on the determinants of corruption has made substantial progress over the last decade. To date, the consequences of different structures of the legal enforcement institutions have only played a marginal role. This contribution deals both with the determinants of corruption within the judiciary and with the consequences of institutional structures of the judiciary for corruption at large. It is shown that both the factual independence of the judiciary as well as that of prosecution agencies are correlated with lower levels of corruption. This is also true for a third indicator that measures the degree to which judges are held accountable for their decisions ("judicial accountability").