Judicial disagreement need not be political: dissent on the Estonian Supreme Court

Chris Hanretty

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9 Citations (Scopus)
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Abstract

I investigate the non-unanimous decisions of judges on the Estonian Supreme Court. I argue that since judges on the court enjoy high de jure independence, dissent frequently, and are integrated in the normal judicial hierarchy, the Estonian Supreme Court is a crucial case for the presumption that judicial disagreement reveals policy preferences. I analyse dissenting opinions using an ideal point response model. Examining the characteristics of cases which discriminated with respect to the recovered dimension, I show that this dimension cannot be interpreted as a meaningful policy dimension, but instead reflects disagreement about the proper scope of constitutional redress.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)970-988
Number of pages19
JournalEurope-Asia Studies
Volume67
Issue number6
Early online date12 Aug 2015
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Aug 2015

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