Judicial independence is an idea that has both internal (or normative) and external (or institutional) aspects. From a normative viewpoint, judges should be autonomous moral agents, who can be relied on to carry out their public duties independent of venal or ideological considerations. Independence, or impartiality, in this sense is a desirable aspect of a judge’s character. But judges are hum...

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Judicial decisions established legal standards for prison conditions and the treatment of prisoners. Prisoners used the litigation process to seek judicial enforcement of these rights-based standards that restricted the autonomy previously enjoyed by correctional officials. Judicial intervention into corrections transformed corrections by pushing all correctional institutions to become professi...

The cost of enforcing contracts is a key determinant of market performance. We document this point with reference to the credit market. We start by presenting a model of opportunistic debtors and inefficient courts. According to the model, improvements in judicial efficiency reduce credit rationing and increase lending, while have an ambiguous effect on interest rates, depending on banking comp...

Shadd Maruna, in his masterpiece, Making Good (Maruna, 2001, 2011) advocates the creation of an institutionalized redemption ritual which would reinforce the offender's own certitude that he or she has indeed desisted successfully, and convince the community and society itself, that he/she has now become a good citizen. Such a ritual , which would preferably be judicial, exists in the French le...

In this study, we analyze the process of collaborative problem solving from the viewpoint of thinking styles. Thinking styles are defined as a preferred way of thinking; here, we focused on three styles: Legislative, Executive, and Judicial. In this study, we created groups whose members displayed different thinking styles, and asked the groups to solve a creative task collaboratively. If think...

Current approaches for the design of Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) systems involve the replication of Alternative Dispute Resolution practices such as mediation and negotiation. Though such systems have been found to be popular, there are concerns that these systems fail to take into account judicial practices. In this paper a system that supports disputants' decisions making when engaged in ...

Are judicial rulings based solely on laws and facts? Legal formalism holds that judges apply legal reasons to the facts of a case in a rational, mechanical, and deliberative manner. In contrast, legal realists argue that the rational application of legal reasons does not sufficiently explain the decisions of judges and that psychological, political, and social factors influence judicial rulings...