The paper is concerned with the existence or otherwise of conscious political interference with judicial decision taking. After a brief review of the theoretical debate over the reasons why such interference may or may not take place, we attempt to produce new evidence from the English Court of...

Legal philosophers like Montesquieu, Hegel and Tocqueville have argued that lay participation in judicial decision-making would have benefits reaching far beyond the realm of the legal system narrowly understood. From an economic point of view, lay participation in judicial decision-making can...

Legal philosophers like Montesquieu, Hegel and Tocqueville have argued that lay participation in judicial decision-making would have benefits reaching far beyond the realm of the legal system narrowly understood. From an economic point of view, lay participation in judicial decision-making can...

Based on data from the EU Justice Scoreboard, we identify a puzzle: National levels of judicial independence (as perceived by the citizens of EU member states) are negatively associated with the presence of formal legislation usually considered as conducive to judicial independence. We try to...

Over the last three decades, plea bargaining procedures have been adopted by a large number of jurisdictions worldwide. However, a comprehensive account of the current adoption and use of such procedures is still missing. We survey 174 jurisdictions, finding that 101 of them have a formalized...