More than Politics: Ability and Ideology in the British Appellate Committee

Abstract

We argue that a model of judicial behavior that accounts for differences in justices' ability and ideology provides a fruitful alternative for the empirical analysis of judicial decision-making around the world, and illustrate this by focusing on the case of the UK. We show that the model explains the decisions of the Lords of Appeal remarkably well, and improves the fit of a purely ideological model. We use our estimates to tackle previously unaddressed questions about the relative role of justices' preferences and ability in the Appellate Committee.

Conceptual Framework and Empirical Methodology for Measuring Multidimensional Judicial Ideology

“…Modelled on the research in the US, similar research started emerging in Canada (Ostberg, Wetstein, 2007;Songer, Johnson, Ostberg, Wetstein, 2012;Wetstein, Ostberg, Songer, Johnson, 2009;Alarie, Green, 2008). Quite extensive research, also modelled on the American example, can also be found in relation to the work of British courts (Blanes i Vidal, Leaver, 2011Hanretty, 2012a;Iaryczower, Katz, 2016). Already in the early 1980s, David Robertson (1982) empirically studied the influence of ideology on decisions in the House of Lords, and later developed an elaborated theoretical notion of judges as political theorists (Robertson, 2010).…”

Quantitative Analysis of Judicial Voting

“…Moreover, judges may make mistakes and have different abilities. Iaryczower and Katz (2016) studied the British House of Lords using a 'learning model' which combined ideology with an ability measure for judges focusing on the ability to problem-solve and be open-minded. They found judges had differences in ability that were correlated with judicial experience but not with political backgrounds or leanings.…”

“…More recently, Iaryczower and Katz (2016) built a 'learning model' that attempts more explicitly to join preferences (not just ideology but broader preferences) with case-specific information and applied the model to the UK House of Lords. They argue preferences create a threshold for a vote that must be overcome by the facts and the law for the judge to vote against her preferences, with judges having different thresholds and abilities.…”

“…For other courts, however, there is not a clear connection to ideology. Iaryczower and Katz (2016) examined the cases chosen by the UK House of Lords and the backgrounds of the judges and found that the cases were not correlated with the politics of the judges. The impact of ideology on the selection of cases may depend on other structural elements of the particular court.…”

“…They found judges appointed by elected officials were more likely to find laws unconstitutional relative to those appointed by the Supreme Court itself. Similarly, Iaryczower and Katz (2016) examine the UK House of Lords and find that there has been an increase in the openness of judges to alter their opinions to case-specific information (as opposed to ideology), which they attribute in part to the decline of politics and increase in merit in appointments. Fischman (2015) found that many of the results on panel effects can be explained by a norm of consensus rather than ideology.…”