Law and Courts in Authoritarian Regimes

Abstract

Once regarded as mere pawns of their regimes, courts in authoritarian states are now the subject of considerable attention within the field of comparative judicial politics. New research examines the ways in which law and courts are deployed as instruments of governance, how they structure state-society contention, and the circumstances in which courts are transformed into sites of active resistance. This new body of research constitutes an emergent field of inquiry, while simultaneously contributing to a number of related research agendas, including authoritarian durability and regime transition, human rights, transitional justice, law and development, and rule-of-law promotion. Moreover, this research offers important insights into the erosion of rights and liberties in "consolidated democracies."

Pre-emptive Constitution-Making: Authoritarian Constitutionalism and the Military in Myanmar

“…This approach was dismissive of the reasons why or how authoritarian regimes use constitutions. In recent decades, however, a new generation of scholarship has driven inquiry into the role and function of constitutions in authoritarian regimes (e.g., Barros ; Brown ; Ginsburg & Simpser ; Ginsburg & Moustafa ; Moustafa ). Law and society scholars have also called attention to the fact that failed or fragile states are not necessarily lawless states, but rather places where law matters (Massoud ; see also Garth & Sarat ).…”

“…There are claims that some constitutions, so‐called “sham” constitutions, fail to live up to a relative standard of rights protection based on comparative quantitative analysis (Law and Versteeg ). Qualitative research has been able to offer a contextualized analysis and pay close attention to local debates and the conditions that enable courts to protect rights claims in authoritarian regimes, from Egypt to Pakistan and Chile (Barros ; Hilbink ; Moustafa ; ; ; Newberg ).…”

Law and Precariousness in an Authoritarian State: The Case of Illegal House Construction in Vietnam

“…Existing studies of the role and operation of law in authoritarian regimes have shed light on varying facets of law, both as an instrument of the state in its consolidation of legitimacy and a space and object of sociopolitical contestation. In authoritarian regimes that claim to rule by the law, the operation of legal institutions is closely tied to the state's objective of power consolidation, of co‐opting and sanctioning social and political forces acting against state interests (Sidel 2008; Chua ; Moustafa ; Whiting ; Curley, Dressel, and McCarthy ). At the societal level, state law in authoritarian regimes has enjoyed limited cultural legitimacy compared with Western rule‐of‐law democracies, as ordinary citizens are often found to bypass, evade, and resist the law and law enforcement institutions in order to solve their social grievances and conduct daily transactions (Galligan ; He ; Hsu ; Hendley ; Su ).…”

O Relatório da Comissão Nacional da Verdade: o capítulo sobre a atuação do Poder Judiciário durante a Ditadura civil-militar brasileira

“…Estados de exceção como a Espanha, de Franco (AGUILAR, 2013;LANERO, 1996), o Chile, de Pinochet (MATUS, 2000), a Alemanha, de Hitler (STEINWEIS; RACHLIN, 2013) e a Rússia, de Stalin (SOLOMON, 1996) mantiveram seus respectivos poderes judiciários em funcionamento sem que, necessariamente, isso representasse um empecilho à consecução dos objetivos de quem estivesse no poder. As funções desempenhadas por esses espaços têm sido objeto de reflexão, especialmente pela ciência política, cuja identificação dos papéis exercidos vai desde a marginalização dos opositores até a preservação política do Governo, quando da implementação de programas impopulares (MOUSTAFA, 2004). Embora a manutenção do Judiciário comporte intrinsecamente, e em tese, um risco aos governos autoritários, pois a qualquer tempo os magistrados podem exercer, de fato, a autonomia a eles reservada pela legislação autoritária, a corriqueira presença dos Judiciários em contextos de exceção comporta muitas indagações.…”