Courts and Crisis Regimes: A Theory Sketch with Asian Case Studies

Abstract

A set of concepts for the comparison of the institutional roles of judiciaries is used to sketch a preliminary theory of the interactions of courts and crisis regimes. Case studies of the Philippines, India, and Pakistan supreme courts in the 1970s explore how their crisis regimes responded to the independence, impartiality, scope, and depths of their supreme courts' decision making and how those courts were or were not able to maintain their performance of other functions and their institutional positions relative to the crisis rulers. The case studies suggest that the most usual relations between courts and crisis regimes involve efforts to restrict the scope and depth, in preference to the independence and impartiality of the courts' decision making. In addition, the judiciary backs down when faced with opportunities to assert its authority by challenging the legitimacy of the crisis regime and exerting its regime limiter/citizen rights protector function.