Abstract
The study distinguishes between three normative approaches that view diversity in the judiciary as a desirable ideal, outlines their expected empirical implications for judicial decision-making, and tests the implications against data from the Israeli Supreme Court. The “reflecting” approach suggests that diversifying the courts is important mainly as a means of strengthening the public’s confidence in them and does not impact judicial decisions. The “representing” approach asserts that judges serve as representatives of their social sectors. Thus, they tend to rule in favor of their group’s interest only in cases that are relevant to their in-group. The “social background theory” is based on the premise that people of different backgrounds develop distinct worldviews. Hence, social attributes are expected to influence judicial decisions across a wide range of socio-legal issues. The empirical investigation centers on the role of gender and religiosity in judging on five carefully selected socio-legal issues: petitions against the Great Rabbinical Court’s rulings, constitutional disputes in all legal procedures, social welfare cases, and criminal appeals in sex offenses and in drug offenses. The results lend support to social background theory with regard to gender and are consistent with the representing approach with respect to religiosity. I further discuss the limitations and policy implications of the findings.
Funding source: Planning and Budgeting Committee
Funding source: Israel Science Foundation
Award Identifier / Grant number: 1821/12
Acknowledgments
For their helpful comments, I thank Einat Albin, Ori Aronson, Netta Barak-Corren, Yishai Blank, Lee Epstein, Yuval Feldman, Oren Gazal-Ayal, Doreen Lustig, Mikael Rask Madsen, Judith Resnik, Gila Stopler, and participants in the 15th international Human Rights Researchers’ Workshop “Courts and Diversity” (Jan. 6–7, 2020, Ramat-Gan), the Hebrew University Law Faculty Seminar (Nov. 19, 2020, Jerusalem), and Haifa University Law Faculty Seminar (Dec. 2020, Haifa).
-
Research funding: The research was supported by the I-CORE program of the Planning and Budgeting Committee and the Israel Science Foundation (grant no. 1821/12), http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100005386.
© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston