Consensus and Ideology in Courts: An Application to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council

Amaral-Garcia Sofia (), dalla Pellegrina Lucia () and Nuno Garoupa
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Amaral-Garcia Sofia: European Commission – Joint Research Center and i3health, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium
dalla Pellegrina Lucia: University of Milano-Bicocca and Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Economics, Psychology, and Social Sciences (CISEPS), Milan, Italy

Review of Law & Economics, 2023, vol. 19, issue 2, 151-184

Abstract: This article supports the view that, while judges suppress dissent when dissenting is too costly, the cost of dissenting depends on the political dimension of the issue broached. It contends that judges who disagree may nevertheless try to safeguard integrity and legitimacy in political disputes by presenting a public impression of unity. We muster evidence from the United Kingdom, specifically, votes from the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) between 1998 and 2011. We demonstrate through statistical analysis that judges are likelier to suppress dissent in devolution cases, which are characterized to be more political in character, than in Commonwealth appeals, which are more mundane in nature. We find that, while consensus on domestic issues reflects the absence of disagreement across judicial ideologies, judges have stronger conflicting positions on issues concerning devolution, but tend to suppress their propensity to dissent. This finding confirms that the JCPC wants to appear cohesive to give an image of greater authority on decisions of predominantly political content.

Keywords: courts; empirical legal studies; judicial behavior; Judicial Committee of the Privy Council; (supress) dissent (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: K00 K40 M50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Working Paper: Consensus and Ideology in Courts: an Application to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (2020)
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DOI: 10.1515/rle-2022-0084

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