Institutions of Independence? Judicial Councils and the Strategic Politics of Compliance

Abstract

Judicial councils are often seen as institutional safeguards that protect courts from political interference and uphold the rule of law. Yet their real-world effects on executive behavior vary widely across countries. This paper investigates the conditions under which judicial councils promote or undermine government compliance with court rulings. I develop a model in which executives strategically design or reform judicial councils to influence court assertiveness, depending on the level of transparency and reputational risk. The model yields clear empirical expectations about when councils facilitate compliance and when they serve symbolic or even suppressive functions. To test these claims, I construct an original panel dataset of 47 European and neighboring countries (1945–2025) that includes detailed institutional features of judicial governance. Using multilevel regression models and extensive robustness checks, I find that councils only promote compliance when they are judge-dominated, institutionally empowered, and embedded in transparent political environments. By contrast, politically dominated or merely symbolic councils are associated with lower levels of compliance. The findings challenge the assumption that judicial councils are inherently democratizing and highlight how institutional design interacts with political context to shape executive-judicial relations.