Monday Essay: Beyond Legalism: The Influence of Judicial Ideology, Personal Values and Other Factors on Judicial Decisions

Introduction

It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.

            There is no doubt that judicial ideology constitutes a fundamental aspect that shapes legal interpretations and decisions although it often remains elusive and complex to measure. Cases that often go before the Supreme Court are mostly difficult cases where there does not seem to be a result clearly dictated by statute or precedent. In order to arrive at decisions, judges would usually exercise discretion. In doing so, judges are not entirely impartial and objective. They are influenced by non-legal factors such as political ideology, personal beliefs and values, judicial ideologies and attitudes, amongst other things which shape outcomes. The pervasive influence of judicial ideology has caused many to scrutinize how judges interpret the law, especially when their decisions impact the lives of vulnerable and marginalized people in society. In contemporary times, understanding the influence of these ideologies and other factors on judicial decisions helps predict the outcomes and also reveal how decisions impact several court users and the public at large. This essay considers how several factors, including judicial ideology, play a role in decision making and also considers how judicial ideology is measured in the course of justice delivery.

 Judicial Ideology: What it is

Judicial ideology includes the set of views, attitudes and principles that govern judge’s decision making. These ideologies form the basis of judge’s interpretation of legal issues which in turn bind future generations. These ideologies include the judge’s political beliefs, attitudes, political preferences, amongst others. They usually impact decisions on legal issues and serve as the prism through which judges perceive and apply the law. Depending on a particular judge’s cultural background and historical perspective, the impact on judicial outcomes differ. All in all, these ideologies largely influence the unique ways in which judges interpret the law and the constitution. Defining judicial ideology is helpful as it establishes a framework through which decision making may be deemed as fair or consistent. Understanding judicial ideology helps to maintain the independence of the judiciary since it reveals the explicit principles and values that guide judicial decision making irrespective of the individual judge’s personal inclinations. This helps to enhance transparency and makes it easier for the general public to understand the principles that guide judicial decisions so as to foster confidence in the judiciary. From the academic perspective, it also enables scholars and practitioners to engage in meaningful discussions about the relevant and acceptable principles that underpin judicial decisions.

Judicial Ideology: How it is measured

There are several ways by which academics and practitioners assess judicial ideology and how it plays a role in judicial decision making. The most common approach involves using indirect measuring standards and indicators of judicial ideologies since accessing direct measures are difficult to obtain. These include considering a particular judge’s attitudes influenced by ethnic, religious, gender, professional career and other factors. Furthermore,  judicial ideology is measured through assessing a particular judge’s actual behavior in specific contexts and situations. In order to do that, one must assume that a judge’s attitude can be deduced from data in relation to the judge’s observed actions as though that judge’s behavior were a latent variable. This would involve considering a judge’s voting pattern overtime. To implement this, one may be required to do an impartial examination of judges followed by an analysis of all their actions in order to estimate their ideological inclinations. This approach is effective to the extent that accurate data exists. It also involves large volumes of data thus making it challenging to measure in practice. A final way of measuring judicial ideology involves transplanting ideology measures developed in one context into other contexts that may have partly or wholly different data. To do this, one may be required to utilize established ideology measures from one setting and apply them to another. This would mean transplanting behavioral measures such as a judge’s past voting record on a particular issue to measure their current ideological preferences. This is helpful to know whether their ideologies have changed over time, or whether the questions they face now are different from those in the past.

How judges make decisions

In practice, most judges decide cases in light of the facts presented before them.  This means that judges are considered as neutral arbiters of the law only that decisions are arrived at based on precedent, plain meaning of legal texts and the intention of the framers of the law, whilst considering the peculiar facts before them. Furthermore, some judges also make decisions largely influenced by their ideological values and attitudes. In other words, judges decide cases based on their views about the relevant laws, the parties in question, their personal beliefs and inclinations. All these private attitudes become public law, in the scheme of things. It must be stated that notwithstanding their personal attitudes, the law remains a key feature of judicial decision making, in this context. This means that judge’s preferences are constrained by precedent, judicial review and adherence to constitutional limitations. Thus, judge’s attitudes and the law exist in a conditional relationship where what they do is constrained by what they can do under the law. Not only so, whilst judges may have their own preferences, they may be in a state of interdependence with their fellow judges, collegial relations, the general public interest, amongst others. These, admittedly, may involve compromises in some areas. From an interpretative dimension, judges may be influenced by originalists styles where they rely on what framers of the relevant laws intended a provision to mean when they wrote them. Thus, judges that subscribe to this approach would always consider the framer’s intentions before arriving at a decision. Textualist judges would rely on the text of the law itself and by so doing, focus on the relationships between words and the commonly understood meanings of those words both at the time the law was written and the present day. More progressively, judges, especially in constitutional interpretation, would treat constitutions as living organisms capable of growth. In doing so, they advocate for a adaptations to changing circumstances. This means that for such judges, where the law is not explicit on an issue, meanings may be allowed to grow in order to find the spirit that can be applied to the case. Above all, there has been a move towards the modern approach to constitutional interpretation where legal texts are given a more benevolent, liberal, purposive and broad interpretation by judges.

Conclusion

The influence of personal beliefs and ideologies in judicial decisions surely affects people going through the court system. Where a judge’s personal beliefs aligns with a party or individual in a case, that party is more likely to win. On the other hand, where a judge’s personal beliefs conflict with a party or individual, they may more likely rule against that party. As a result, it is possible to experience and observe unequal treatment under the law. This largely impacts the impartiality if the judicial branch. In the realm of contemporary legal discourse, the influence of judicial ideology demands more attention than not. It is a fundamental force guiding legal interpretations and decisions though challenges remain as to how to quantify and measure it. This thus makes it necessary to develop nuanced measurement approaches. The judiciary must acknowledge and define its ideological underpinnings, ensuring fairness and equal protection of rights, as envisioned in the core principles of justice and democracy. It is only through an appraisal of judicial ideology that one can strive for a legal system that truly serves all members of society. The process of defining judicial ideology involves articulating the principles, values, and legal philosophies that should guide judges in their decision-making. It is advocated that these ideologies must include commitment to the rule of law, equal protection, human rights, and fairness, public consultations, scholarly input, and the establishment of clear guidelines within the legal community.

God bless!