Public Acceptance of Legal Opinions in an Age of Judicial Independence at Stake

To what extent are judicial legitimacy and ideological views on controversial legal opinions linked? Judicial independents is increasingly under pressure in younger European democracies, which is why it is reasonable to (re-)evaluate the publics’ willingness to support highest courts within the European Union. In particular, we need to understand how possible changes in judicial legitimacy link to the publics’ willingness to accept judicial opinions. This is why, we analyze whether individuals regard judicial opinions as politically moderate or extreme in comparison to their own political views, as the support for highest courts varies. In order to do so, we administered a survey-experiment in 12 Western and Central Eastern European countries evaluating two aspects. First, we evaluate a respondent’s support for the highest court with judicial or constitutional review powers, using established legitimacy measures. Second, we ask respondents to place controversial societal opinions in a policy space and randomly prime them that those opinions where made either in a decision by the highest court or by a representative of the national government; we withhold any priming from a control group. Finally, we compare the placement of the opinion to someone’s political self-placement. Data collected in this way allows for a research design to assess variation in public support for the judiciary across countries. Moreover, we can assess respondents’ perceptions of controversial opinions made by judicial institutions in comparison to the other primers. Findings from that study have implications for our understanding of the publics` reaction to the increasing threat on judicial independence. Moreover, in comparing findings across countries we are able to understand whether limiting judicial independence also promotes the public rejection of controversial court opinions. If this is the case then a government limiting the judiciary would potential succeed when increasingly engaging in court-curbing.