University of Chicago Law School Chicago Unbound Journal Articles Faculty Scholarship 2008 The Comparative Law and Economics of Judicial Councils Tom Ginsburg Nuno Garoupa Follow this and additional works at: https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/journal_articles Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Tom Ginsburg & Nuno Garoupa, "The Comparative Law and Economics of Judicial Councils," 27 Berkeley Journal of International Law 53 (2008). This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at Chicago Unbound. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal Articles by an authorized administrator of Chicago Unbound. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Comparative Law and Economics of Judicial Councils Nuno Garoupa and Tom Ginsburg* TABLE OF CONTENTS I. IN TRO DU CTION ....................................................................................... 54 II. THE TENSION BETWEEN ACCOUNTABILITY AND INDEPENDENCE ........... 56 A. Judicial Councils in Civil and Common Law Systems .............. 57 B. Balancing Independence and Accountability .............................. 60 III. T HEO RY .................................................................................................. 6 1 A. Judicial Councils as Intermediaries Between Principal and A gent ........................................................................................ 62 B . Judicial Incentives ....................................................................... 63 C. Judicial Councils as Monitoring Devices ................................... 65 D . Institutional Setup ....................................................................... 66 IV . C ASE STU DIES ...................................................................................... 67 A . U nited States .............................................................................. 67 B . B razil .......................................................................................... 70 C . Israel .......................................................................................... 72 D . France ..........................................................................................73 E . Italy ............................................................................................ 75 F. The N etherlands .......................................................................... 77 G . The U nited Kingdom ................................................................... 78 V . C ONCLUSION ....................................................................................... 83 Garoupa is Professor of Law, University of Illinois and Research Professor of Law, IMDEA (Madrid); Ginsburg is Professor of Law, University of Chicago. We thank Luciana Gross Cunha, Emilio Gerelli, F. Andrew Hanssen, Richard McAdams, Maria Angela Oliveira, Daniela Piana, Li- mor Riza, Larry Solum, and Stefan Van Hemmen for helpful comments on earlier versions of the paper. We are grateful to Rebecca Crouse, Sofia Garcia, Christopher Minelli and Antonio Porto for research assistantship. The usual disclaimers apply. HeinOnline -- 27 Berkeley J. Int'l Law 53 2009 54 BERKELEY JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW [Vol. 27:1 I. INTRODUCTION Most theories of judicial independence place a great emphasis on selection mechanisms for judges.' An appointment mechanism that appears to link the selected judge too closely to the appointing body calls into question whether the judge can be relied upon to deliver neutral, legitimate, high-quality decisions. While there is near-universal consensus on this as a matter of theory, legal sys- tems diverge greatly in the ways in which they appoint judges, as each tries to balance independence with accountability through institutional design. The di- versity of systems of judicial selection suggests a lack of consensus on the best manner to guarantee independence.2 American states are exceptional in the range and variety of judicial ap- pointment systems they employ, including various forms of election, appoint- ment by political authorities, and the use of judicial commissions.3 The merits of these various methods are hotly debated among scholars and state policymak- ers, with each method having its advocates.4 However, it is safe to say the 1. There is a large body of literature on judicial independence and quality. See, e.g., Richard A. Epstein, The Independence of Judges: The Uses and Limitations of Public Choice Theory, 1990 B.Y.U. L. REV. 827; Eli Salzberger & Paul Fenn, Judicial Independence: Some Evidence from the English Court ofAppeal, 42 J.L. & ECON. 831 (1999); F. Andrew Hanssen, Is There a Politically Optimal Level of Judicial Independence?, 94 AM. ECON. REV. 712 (2004); Irving R. Kaufman, The Essence of Judicial Independence, 80 COLUM. L. REV. 671 (1980); Daniel M. Klerman & Paul G. Mahoney, The Value of Judicial Independence: Evidence from Eighteenth Century England, 7 AM. L. & ECON. REV. 1 (2005); William M. Landes & Richard A. Posner, The Independent Judiciary in an Interest-Group Perspective, 18 J.L. & ECON. 875 (1975); J. Mark Ramseyer, The Puzzling (In)dependence of Courts: A ComparativeApproach, 23 J. LEGAL STUD. 721 (1994); J. Mark Ram- seyer & Eric B. Rasmusen, JudicialIndependence in a Civil Law Regime: The Evidencefrom Japan, 13 J.L. ECON. & ORG. 259 (1997); McNollgast, Conditions for Judicial Independence, 15 J. CONTEMP. LEGAL ISSUES 105 (2006). For a more comparative perspective, see Josefina Calcafio de Temeltas, Commentary, To Promote and Strengthen JudicialIndependence and the Rule of Law in the Hemisphere, 40 ST. LOUIS U. L. J. 997 (1996). 2. See generally APPOINTING JUDGES IN AN AGE OF JUDICIAL POWER: CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES FROM AROUND THE WORLD (Kate Malleson & Peter H. Russell eds., 2006). 3. Kurt E. Scheuerman, Comment, Rethinking Judicial Elections, 72 OR. L. REV. 459 (1993) (providing overview of selection mechanisms); American Judicature Society on Judicial Selection in the States, http://www.judicialselection.us/judicial-selectionmaterials/index.cfm (last visited Oct. 23, 2008). 4. Malia Reddick, Merit Selection: A Review of the Social Scientific Literature, 106 DICK. L. REV. 729 (2002) (providing summary of empirical evidence); Luke Bierman, Preserving Power in Picking Judges: Merit Selection for the New York Court of Appeals, 60 ALB. L. REV. 339 (1996) (advocating merit system for New York); Norman L. Greene, Perspectives on Judicial Selection Reform: The Need to Develop a Model Appointive Selection Planfor Judges in Light of Experience, 68 ALB. L. REV. 597 (2005) (determining the merit system is superior); Steven Zeidman, Judicial Politics:Making the Case for Merit Selection, 68 ALB. L. REV. 713 (2005); Lawrence H. Averill, Jr., Observations on the Wyoming Experience with Merit Selection of Judges: A Model for Arkansas, 17 U. ARK. LITTLE ROCK L. REV. 281 (1995) (Arkansas); Sara S. Greene, et. al., On the Validity and Vitality ofArizona 's JudicialMerit Selection System: Past, Present, and Future, 34 FORDHAM URI. L.J. 239 (2007) (Arizona); Victoria Cecil, Merit Selection and Retention: The Great Compromise? HeinOnline -- 27 Berkeley J. Int'l Law 54 2009 2009] JUDICIAL COUNCILS scholarly literature assumes that merit selection-involving nonpartisan judicial commissions rather than elections or appointment by politicians-is the optimal way to ensure independence. 5 We thus see the emergence of a new ortho- doxy-merit selection is good and other methods are retrograde. Because there are few common metrics to evaluate the comparative independence or quality of American state judiciaries, the new scholarly consensus is largely theoretical, built on anecdotal rather than systematic evidence. 6 We look at this question from a comparative perspective, using evidence and experiences from other countries to inform this debate. Many foreign juris- dictions have adopted institutions known as judicial councils in recent years. These institutions, which closely resemble merit selection plans, are designed to help enhance judicial independence and external accountability and to strike a balance between the two. This paper describes these institutions and provides an economic theory of their formation and features. In another paper, we exam- ine evidence as to whether different designs of judicial council affect judicial quality. 7 Although we found little relation between council adoption and qual- ity, we believe that the eternal struggle for a balance between independence and accountability ensures that judicial councils-and by analogy, selection schemes in American states-will continue to be a locus of institutional reform. In this paper, we use law and economics to develop a theory of judicial councils and examine the experiences of several countries in light of our theory. First, we discuss the emergence of judicial councils and their American counter- parts, merit selection commissions. We then provide an economic theory of the Not Necessarily, 39 CT. REV. 20 (2002) (Florida); Jason J. Czarnezki, A Callfor Change: Improving JudicialSelection Methods, 89 MARQ. L. REV. 169 (2005) (Wisconsin); Lenore L. Prather, Judicial Selection: What is Right for Mississippi?, 21 MiSS. C. L. REV. 199 (2002) (Mississippi). 5. Reddick, supra note 4; Jona Goldschmidt, Merit Selection: Current Status, Procedures, and Issues, 49 U. MIAMI L. REV. 1 (1994) (providing extensive history of merit selection and argu- ing for the merit plan); Joseph A. Colquitt, Rethinking Judicial Nominating Commissions: Independ-