When courts started publishing judgements, big data analysis (i.e. large-scale statistical analysis of case law and machine learning) within the legal domain became possible. By taking data from the European Court of Human Rights as an example, we investigate how natural language processing tools can be used to analyse texts of the court proceedings in order to automatically predict (future) judicial decisions. With an average accuracy of 75% in predicting the violation of 9 articles of the European Convention on Human Rights our (relatively simple) approach highlights the potential of machine learning approaches in the legal domain. We show, however, that predicting decisions for future cases based on the cases from the past negatively impacts performance (average accuracy range from 58 to 68%). Furthermore, we demonstrate that we can achieve a relatively high classification performance (average accuracy of 65%) when predicting outcomes based only on the surnames of the judges that try the case.

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Using machine learning to predict decisions of the European Court of Human Rights

The Politics of Constitutional Review in Germany. By Georg Vanberg. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 208p. $70.00. The judicial power to review the constitutionality of laws was a unique feature of American constitutionalism well into the twentieth century. The perceived success of this experiment in limited democracy prompted several nations, among them West Germany, to create courts of constitutional review in the aftermath of World War II. Now several decades later, as the author of this book writes, constitutional review “has emerged as an almost universal feature of western-style democracy” (p. 1). In most of the world's advanced liberal democracies, the power to review the constitutionality of laws has been lodged in specialized courts of constitutional review, meaning that only these courts are empowered to nullify laws on constitutional grounds. Germany's Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) is one of the most notable and powerful of these specialized tribunals. It is notable for the frequency with which it has invalidated national and local laws and also for the extensive reach of its jurisdiction. Owing to the German court's rejection of any political question doctrine, together with its authority to decide with finality abstract questions of constitutional law—that is, questions raised by legislators outside the normal framework of an actual law suit—its powers of review actually exceed those of the Supreme Court. Indeed, the FCC has begun to challenge the Supreme Court as the leading model of constitutional review around the world.

The Politics of Constitutional Review in Germany

?Por que los jueces chilenos, adiestrados y designados por gobiernos democraticos, facilitaron, condonaron y legitimaron las practicas ilegales y antidemocraticas durante el regimen de Pinochet? Lisa Hilbink responde a esta pregunta de investigacion evidenciando la importancia del diseno institucional y sus efectos sobre la conformacion de la judicatura como instancia de control y garante de las libertades publicas. Para ello, aborda el estudio del desempeno judicial en Chile desde 1964 (cuando el pais alcanza los mas altos niveles de respeto a las garantias democraticas en la region) hasta el ano 2000, demostrando que las preferencias politicas personales, la filosofia legal imperante, los intereses de clase y variables propias del regimen (miedo y control del Ejecutivo), no son suficientes para explicar el comportamiento colaboracionista y legitimador en este trascendental periodo de la historia de Chile. Hilbink elabora una solida hipotesis en favor del argumento institucional como factor explicativo del conservadurismo y conformismo que han caracterizado la conducta judicial a lo largo del tiempo, y destaca el efecto significativo tanto de la propia estructura, como de lo que denomina “ideologia institucional”.

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Judges Beyond politics in democracy and dictatorship. Lessons from Chile

When courts started publishing judgements, big data analysis (i.e. large-scale statistical analysis and machine learning) within the legal domain became possible. By taking data from the European Court of Human Rights as an example, we investigate how Natural Language Processing tools can be used to analyse texts of the court proceedings in order to automatically predict (future) judicial decisions. With an average accuracy of 75% in predicting the violation of 9 articles of the European Convention on Human Rights our (relatively simple) approach highlights the potential of machine learning approaches in the legal domain.

Judicial decisions of the European Court of Human Rights: looking into the crystall ball

Different theories have been developed, mainly in the context of the United States, to explain judicial decision-making. In this respect, there is an important ongoing debate over whether judges are guided by the law or by personal ideology. The analysis of the decision-making in the Polish Constitutional Tribunal seems to support the existence of some party alignment. It is to say that judicial behavior is influenced by the ideology, either because judges’ preferences coincide with the interests of a specific party or because the judges are incentivized to show their loyalty to a party. Party alignment exists but subject to institutional influences. These results are in line with previous findings for other constitutional courts in Europe.

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An empirical analysis of constitutional review voting in the polish constitutional tribunal, 2003–2014

This article develops an empirical analysis of judicial behavior in the Spanish Supreme Court, a court of law dominated by career judiciary. We focus on administrative review. The evidence seems to confirm that a career judiciary is not strongly politically aligned and favors consensus, formalism, and dissent avoidance. Notwithstanding, we detect a significant relationship between the decisions of the Court and the interest of the government. We suggest that our empirical analysis makes a significant contribution to undermine the myth of political insulation by career judges. Unlike previous literature, however, we argue and illustrate that judicial politicization can be consistent with consensus and dissent avoidance.

Political Influence and Career Judges: An Empirical Analysis of Administrative Review by the Spanish Supreme Court

The empirical literature has consistently shown that judicial ideal points can be estimated in a one-dimensional space that reflects the traditional conservative-progressive dichotomy. In this paper, we develop an empirical methodology to analyze some features that may characterize bidimensional courts. We apply the analysis to the particular case of the Consell de Garanties Estatutaries de Catalunya (Catalan Constitutional Court). The results illustrate that one dimension (Spanish-Catalan sovereignty) tends to explain polarization while issues that can be classified as pertaining to the second dimension (cases on the conservative-progressive grounds) seem more likely to reflect dissent suppression. Policy conclusions are derived.

A Study on Judicial Ideal Points in a Bidimensional Court

Este trabajo analiza la sentencia del Tribunal Europeo de Derechos Humanos de 8 de noviembre de 2011 (TEDH 2011\95). En ella se plantean las siguientes cuestiones: en primer lugar, si la esterilizacion de una mujer romani durante el parto tiene la consideracion de trato inhumano o degradante; en segundo lugar, si dicha esterilizacion constituye un incumplimiento de la obligacion de la Republica eslovaca de garantizar la salud reproductiva de las pacientes de origen etnico romani y, por tanto, una violacion del derecho al respeto de su vida privada y familiar; finalmente, si el origen etnico y el sexo de la paciente condicionaron la decision de esterilizacion del personal medico. This paper analyses the European Court of Human Rights Decision, of 8 November 2011 (TEDH 2011\95). It raises the following issues: firstly, whether the sterilization of a Romani woman during the childbirth may constitute an inhuman or degrading treatment; secondly, whether this sterilization leads to a breach by the Slovak Republic of its duty to guarantee the reproductive health of Romani patients and, therefore, a violation of the right to respect for their private and family life; finally, whether the ethnic origin and sex of the patient determined the sterilization decision by the medical staff.

La esterilización forzosa de mujeres romaníes en la República eslovaca: ¿no hay discriminación? (Sterilization of Romani Women in Slovak Republic: Isn't There Discrimination Here?)

Marian Gili Saldaña

Papers

Political Influence and Career Judges: An Empirical Analysis of Administrative Review by the Spanish Supreme Court

A Study on Judicial Ideal Points in a Bidimensional Court

La esterilización forzosa de mujeres romaníes en la República eslovaca: ¿no hay discriminación? (Sterilization of Romani Women in Slovak Republic: Isn't There Discrimination Here?)