Doctoral Dissertation Research: Judicial Independence. What Is It? How Can We Tell It When We See It? What Difference Does It Make? A Study On Latin America

人们普遍认为，独立的司法机构促进经济发展，降低腐败水平，保护人权和许多其他社会公益。 然而，经验分析没有发现一致的证据表明“司法独立”带来了这些好处。 该项目使人们更好地理解司法独立的含义，以便能够在我们看到司法独立时加以说明，并评估司法独立在什么情况下产生什么影响。该项目由理论分析和对17个拉丁美洲国家的实证研究以及智利和墨西哥的两个案例研究组成。 PI将得出一个分析司法独立的原始框架。特别是，他将确定司法独立的不同体制模式，即组织一国司法系统的不同可能方式，并对其进行排序。 从那里，PI将提出一组可观察的变量，并根据其模型对拉丁美洲国家进行分类。我们认为，这种分类不仅使我们能够在时间和空间上进行有意义的比较，而且还可以测试司法独立的不同维度对治理和繁荣问题的影响。此外，该项目还涉及创建一个数据库，其中包括法律的变量、验证法律分类的行为数据以及关于腐败、人权保护、诉诸司法和繁荣问题的数据。 该提案的更广泛影响在于确定司法独立的哪些特定方面有利于打击腐败、保护人权和促进繁荣。 该奖项由NSF国际科学与工程办公室共同资助。

It is widely believed that an independent judiciary fosters economic development, low corruption levels, protection for human rights, and a host of other societal goods. Empirical analysis, however, do not find consistent evidence that "judicial independence" causes those benefits. This project provides a better understanding of what judicial independence means, in order to be able to tell it when we see it, and to evaluate what difference does it make, on what, and under what circumstances. The project is composed of a theoretical analysis followed by an empirical study on seventeen Latin American countries, as well as two case studies in Chile and Mexico. The PI will derive an original framework to analyze judicial independence. In particular, he will identify and rank different institutional models of judicial independence, i.e. different possible ways of organizing the judicial system of a country. From there, the PI will propose a set of observable variables and classify Latin American countries according to their model. We argue that this classification not only allow us to make meaningful comparisons across time and space but also to test for the effects of different dimensions of judicial independence on governance and prosperity issues. In addition, the project involves creating a database with legal variables, behavioral data to validate the de jure classification, as well as data on corruption, human rights protection, access to justice, and prosperity issues. The broader impacts of the proposal lie in the identification of which particular dimensions of judicial independence are good to combat corruption, protect human rights, and promote prosperity. This award was co-funded by NSF's Office of International Science and Engineering.