Explaining Government Attacks on the Judiciary: The Conditional Impact of Political Corruption

A powerful and independent judiciary is an indispensable institution in democratic regimes. Although judicial independence necessitates low levels of governmental interference in judicial decisions, today not only in authoritarian regimes but also in many democratic countries we encounter numerous examples of governmental attacks on the judiciary. While in the literature a large number of studies try to explain the key determinants of judicial independence, only a few number of studies account for the incumbent governments' decision to attack the judiciary. Focusing on the governmental attacks on the judiciary, this study aims to explain whether, and if so how, the level of political corruption in a country affects the incumbent government’s attacks on the judiciary. Conducting time-series cross-section analysis across 118 countries for the years 1975-2015, this study shows that as media independence across and within countries changes, the impact of political corruption on the incumbent government’s decision to attack the judiciary changes as well. Our empirical findings reveal that in countries where media independence is low, high levels of political corruption significantly increases the governmental attacks on the judiciary; but when media independence is high, political corruption does not seem to have any significant impact on the government’s attack on the judiciary.