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Focusing on the independent and powerful pre–martial law Philippine Supreme Court, we investigate the impact of the establishment and breakdown of authoritarianism on the court's performance of the functions of conflict resolution, social control, and administration. We develop hypotheses concerning and models of the impacts of the onset, consolidation, and breakdown of martial law authoritarianism under Ferdinand Marcos on that court's handling of the three functions. Using Box-Jenkins time series analysis methods, we assess the impacts of the onset, consolidation, and breakdown of Marcos's authoritarianism on the Supreme Court's functional performance. In our analysis, authoritarianism had no impact on the Court's performance of the conflict resolution function; authoritarianism's onset increased and its breakdown decreased the Court's performance of the routine administrative function; and authoritarianism's onset decreased but its consolidation increased the Court's performance of the social control function.

Research on the U.S. Supreme Court suggests that judges' decisions are influenced by their policy preferences. Moreover, judges behave strategically to facilitate outcomes that conform as close as possible to those preferences. We seek to generalize this assertion to judicial actors in two very diverse social systems: Canada in the post‐Charter years and apartheid‐era South Africa. Specifically, we analyze the use of panel assignments by the chief justices in both countries. We find that chief justices do behave strategically. Chief justices in both countries do not assign judges to panels randomly but rather are influenced by the tenure and ideology of the sitting judges and the issues presented in the case.

Research on litigation outcomes suggests that success is related to the level of resources available to the parties in conflict. For more developed socie ties, the "haves" appear to win more often. Research on the Philippine Supreme Court finds that the "have nots" appear to have a significant advantage, particularly for some issue areas. While these studies find inter national variations in the effects of resources on litigation outcomes, in tranational variation has not been explored. This analysis investigates the relationship between regional bias, resource inequalities, and litigation outcomes before the Philippine Supreme Court for certain economic is sues. The results indicate that there is a greater likelihood of success for individuals who challenge corporations or the government, and reside in the least developed region of the country.