Not in My Name! Pathways of Parties’ Politicisation of Judicial Activism against Corruption

This article aims to analyse the impact of the politicisation of judicial activism against corruption. The judiciary plays a pivotal role in enforcing anti-corruption legislation, and, in many countries, courts have started targeting elected officials both at local and national level. In the article, we try to assess empirically the effect of the polarisation of opinions, interests, or values about judicial investigations upon citizens’ confidence towards the judiciary. We argue that when political leaders and parties, targeted by corruption investigation, strategically question judicial independence and impartiality, they crystallise a new dimension of conflict which affects both horizontal and vertical accountability of the judiciary. The paper proposes a typology to capture the variation in the response towards anti-corruption investigations by institutional actors, looking at their strategies to neutralise and/or to delegitimise judicial activism. Empirically, the study aims at assessing the impact upon citizens’ confidence towards the judiciary in Europe, using survey data from 24 countries, and through an in-depth analysis of Italy, a country which has experienced high levels of politicisation of anti-corruption