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Judges Or Hostages? The Bureaucratization Of The Court Of Justice Of The European Union And The European Court Of Human Rights, Mathilde Cohen

Mathilde Cohen

Court staff occupy a critical position in the administration of justice around the world. They typically represent a diverse corps of subordinated professionals whom judges delegate responsibilities for multiple aspects of their adjudicative and administrative functions. The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) are no strangers to this practice. The size and influence of their non-judicial personnel is striking, raising the question of whether judges have become hostages to the bureaucracy in their own courts. Drawing on the emerging field of the sociology of European institutions, this chapter argues that …

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Ex Ante Versus Ex Post Deliberations: Two Models Of Judicial Deliberations In Courts Of Last Resort, Mathilde Cohen

Mathilde Cohen

This Article discusses supreme and constitutional courts’ internal organizational cultures, that is, the way in which justices organize their work and establish informal decision-making norms. Courts of last resort are often presented as exemplary deliberative institutions. The conference meeting, which convenes judges in quiet seclusion to debate, has been glorified as the most significant step in a court’s decision-making process. Based in part on qualitative empirical research, I argue, however, that French, American, and European Justices may not deliberate in the full sense that deliberative democrats have theorized. The Article distinguishes two types of high court deliberations, which I call …

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Reason Giving In Court Practice: Decision-Makers At The Crossroads, Mathilde Cohen

Mathilde Cohen

According to liberal democratic theory, public institutions’ practice—and sometimes duty—to give reasons is required so that each individual may view the state as reasonable and, therefore, legitimate. Does the giving of reasons in actual court practice achieve these goals? Drawing on empirical research carried out in a French court, this Article shows that, in practice, reason-giving often falls either short of democracy or beyond democracy. Reasons fall short of democracy in the first case because they are transformed from a device designed to “protect” citizens from arbitrariness into a professional norm intended to “protect” the judges themselves and perhaps further …

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Judges Or Hostages? The Bureaucratization Of The Court Of Justice Of The European Union And The European Court Of Human Rights, Mathilde Cohen

Mathilde Cohen

Ex Ante Versus Ex Post Deliberations: Two Models Of Judicial Deliberations In Courts Of Last Resort, Mathilde Cohen

Mathilde Cohen

Reason Giving In Court Practice: Decision-Makers At The Crossroads, Mathilde Cohen

Mathilde Cohen