Monitoring High Court Rulings in New Democracies

High courts in new democracies possess constitutional review powers but lack direct enforcement mechanisms, raising the question of how they secure compliance with their rulings. We develop a strategic theory of judicial monitoring, positing that judges deploy oversight measures selectively when social pressure raises reputational stakes. Using a novel dataset of 6,093 decisions by Ecuador’s Constitutional Court (2015–2024) and Firth regressions, we test the effects of social pressure, budgetary resources, and case salience on the probability of monitoring. Results show that amicus briefs -our proxy for social pressure- increase the odds of formal monitoring by 1.6 times, raising predicted probabilities from 2% to 8%, while budget and salience exhibit no consistent impact. We argue that judges engage in institutional “triage,” relying on informational cues to balance resource costs against reputational risks. Our study contributes a large-N perspective on post-decision enforcement and highlights the pivotal role of civil-society participation in strengthening judicial compliance.