Global trends in judicial power

Many who study courts from an international perspective believe that two important trends have affected the relationship between courts and the larger political systems in which they are embedded. First, beginning in the late 20th century, many national courts became more powerful, largely because political disputes and issues that had been traditionally contested in the political arena were increasingly contested in courtrooms—a trend referred to as the “politicization of the judiciary.” This trend emerged as the legal side of various political issues became increasingly apparent and salient and as societies themselves became more litigious. Specifically, courts historically have adopted a “hands-off” doctrine to fundamentally political questions, arguing that they are best resolved by the legislative and executive branches of government. However, many political questions involve legal issues (e.g., civil rights), and those legal issues were used to transform political questions into legitimate justiciable disputes. With a larger population of lawyers and judges sensitive to such claims, courts have become more receptive to controversial matters of social policy. In the United States, for example, the quintessential political issue of how the geographic boundaries of constituencies for legislative bodies are to be drawn (see gerrymandering) has been the subject of intense and widespread litigation as courts have validated or invalidated various districting plans. Another political issue that is now contested in many courts of the world is the right to abortion. Such issues are no longer considered “political questions” that must be left to the political process to resolve. Because they typically involve individual rights and presumably are capable of settlement by legal means, legal answers to precise legal questions are brought before the courts.

Other manifestations of a politicized judiciary can be found in the appointment process and the increasingly large role of courts as policy-making institutions. In the United States the data on the ideological proximity of judges to their appointers is compelling. While not carbon copies of their appointing president, judges and justices overwhelmingly share the president’s partisan identity, ideological intensity, and policy interests. In Russia courts have been dissolved and new ones installed according to sudden changes in process and authority. With regard to policy making, courts have become increasingly active agents of social, political, and legal change. Although courts cannot themselves “make law,” they can and do make policy by striking down laws, establishing procedures for complying with the law, and imposing a sense of what can and cannot lawfully be done by citizens and political officials.

A second trend involves what has been termed the “judicialization of politics,” or the infusion of legal principles, procedures, and processes into areas of political or administrative policy making heretofore characterized by political, not legal, means of decision making. For example, people in the United States and the United Kingdom now have a legally recognized right to be treated fairly by government-run universities and state social-welfare agencies. Indigenous populations in several countries have also sought and secured legal protection on the basis of their group-based identity. This has come in the form of rulings and laws designed to protect tribal autonomy and religious practices and, as with the Maori of New Zealand, has compelled the federal government in general to respect tribal identities, cultural practices, property, and limited sovereignty. This due process revolution reflects, in part, the worldwide “rights explosion,” in which members of nearly every social group have come to view themselves as bearers of rights that cannot be unreasonably encroached upon or limited by the state. Because people are no longer willing to tolerate abuses of their rights, they have often turned to courts to seek a remedy and thereby have enhanced the power of the courts in many countries.

In many countries, the courts are the only political institution that is accessible to those with less power—otherwise they would pursue their interests in arenas of majoritarian politics, such as parliaments. Courts are therefore often associated with the “minority rights” component of the democratic equation (majority rule, with respect for minority rights). Accordingly, great faith has been placed in courts to protect individual citizens from “unenlightened” majorities and “conspiratorial” minorities. This view was particularly apparent in the planning of the courts in the new democracies that emerged in central and eastern Europe after the fall of communism in 1989–90. Those who constructed the democratic constitutions for these countries quite consciously designed judicial institutions with enormous political and legal power but with limited accountability to the ordinary political process. Often modeled on Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court (perhaps the most respected national court in Europe), these courts have been instrumental in shaping the political structures and processes of these nascent democracies. The Polish Constitutional Tribunal has been notable for its determined effort to assert its will on the political process, and, throughout the region, courts have attempted to force politicians to play by the constitutional rules (though with varying degrees of success). This trend is not limited to the United States and Europe. Latin American courts, once characterized as “captive courts” because of their absence of genuine autonomy, have begun to exercise their legal and political power, even against other institutions. This was evident in 2000, when the Chilean Supreme Court stripped former dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet of legal immunity and opened the door for trials to commence on human rights violations. Additional evidence is found in how organized interests and governmental organizations have begun to view the courts—or to force the courts to serve—as agents of change. While countries that have democratized more recently still lag behind Western democracies in terms of both the usage and the independence of the judiciary, courts globally have become important agents of legal, political, and social change. Because courts are often viewed as the “guardians of democracy,” powerful and independent judiciaries throughout the world are increasingly seen as necessary components of a successful democratic system.