Description du projet
Retracer le déclin invisible de la démocratie
Le rôle crucial d’un système judiciaire indépendant doté de règles claires, respectées et formelles pour la santé des systèmes démocratiques a fait l’objet de nombreuses études. Toutefois, la documentation récente suggère que peu importe la perfection de la conception formelle, le rôle des tribunaux et des systèmes judiciaires pourrait être influencé par des pratiques informelles, qui pourraient contribuer (patronage) au déclin démocratique ou le contrer (normes éthiques informelles). Malheureusement, les phénomènes des institutions intra- ou extrajudiciaires informelles ne sont pas encore intégrés aux études judiciaires. Pour combler cette lacune, le projet INFINITY, financé par l’UE, mènera une étude juridique comparative approfondie combinant sciences sociologiques et politiques, tout en s’intéressant à l’analyse des différences dans les systèmes judiciaires informels et à leur rôle dans les «nouveaux» et les «anciens» États membres de l’UE.
Objectif
Mainstream literature on courts focuses on formal rules. Yet informal judicial institutions, ranging from bureaucratic norms to clientelism, often shape judicial performance strongly. These institutions may even facilitate democratic decay. For example, various “gentlemen’s pacts” between judicial associations may substitute formal rules governing selection of judges, entrenching patronage and vertical gender segregation. Politically savvy chief justice can tweak the formal rules and forge alliances with politicians. Other informal judicial institutions may counteract democratic decay. For instance, judges may team up with journalists and mobilize the public to defend the judiciary. Recent literature has acknowledged these phenomena. However, the range of informal intra-judicial and extra-judicial institutions and their effects are not yet fully understood, as the traditional doctrinal and normative scholarship is not able to capture them. INFINITY fills this gap and addresses the implications of this phenomenon for the “new” and “old” EU member states, and the neighbouring countries.
The central research question of INFINITY is: How do informal judicial institutions affect functioning of the judiciary and under what circumstances they counteract or contribute to democratic decay? INFINITY builds on a comparative legal perspective combined with sociological and political science approaches. It consists of 4 interrelated research aims: The first aim is to identify the most important informal judicial institutions in 16 European jurisdictions. The second aim is to assess their impact, positive or negative, on the domestic judiciaries, including their gender aspects. The third aim is to analyse supranational influence of EU and CoE on informal judicial institutions. The fourth overarching aim is to synthetize previous findings on the dynamics of informal judicial institutions into an overarching theory on the role of informal judicial institutions in democratic decay.
Champ scientifique
Programme(s)
Régime de financement
ERC-COG - Consolidator GrantInstitution d’accueil
601 77 Brno
Tchéquie