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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 Dec 2016

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 …


Ex Ante Versus Ex Post Deliberations: Two Models Of Judicial Deliberations In Courts Of Last Resort, Mathilde Cohen Dec 2013

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 …


The Rule Of Law As The Rule Of Reasons, Mathilde Cohen Dec 2009

The Rule Of Law As The Rule Of Reasons, Mathilde Cohen

Mathilde Cohen

This paper argues that in contemporary legal thinking, the concept of the rule of law has become inseparable from the idea that legal decision-makers should give reasons to justify their decisions. Yet, how far can the concept of the rule the law be understood as establishing a rule of reasons? I examine whether reason giving is necessarily connected with the rule of law in the sense that a legal system would not conform to the rule of law if its decisions were not supported by publicly articulated reasons. I proceed by arguing that the focus on reason giving vindicates both …