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Spurred by legal tradition or contextual politics? Lessons about judicial dissent from Slovenia and Croatia

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  • Garoupa, Nuno
  • Grajzl, Peter

Abstract

Comparative studies tend to attribute observed differences in judicial dissent to different legal tradition. Divergent dissent behavior of constitutional courts in Slovenia and Croatia, which emerged from a shared legal tradition, casts doubt on the validity of this view. We first clarify the countries’ common legal-historical legacy and identify salient post-Yugoslav between-country differences in party fractionalization, a contextual factor previously shown to influence judicial outcomes. We next argue conceptually that, for a given legal tradition, greater party fragmentation increases the net benefits to justices from dissent. Finally, drawing on a newly-assembled micro-level dataset of constitutional court decisions in Slovenia and Croatia, we demonstrate that country-level party fractionalization is indeed an important determinant of judicial dissent. Our analysis thereby illuminates that underexplored contextual political factors may be no less relevant as a driver of dissent in the courts of law than the conventionally emphasized legal tradition.

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  • Garoupa, Nuno & Grajzl, Peter, 2020. "Spurred by legal tradition or contextual politics? Lessons about judicial dissent from Slovenia and Croatia," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:irlaec:v:63:y:2020:i:c:s0144818820300259
    DOI: 10.1016/j.irle.2020.105912
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