Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization Advance Access published online on April 15, 2008
Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, doi:10.1093/jleo/ewn001
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Judicial Independence Under a Divided Polity: A Study of the Rulings of the French Constitutional Court, 1959–2006
Bar-Ilan University
* Department of Economics, Bar-Ilan University, 52900 Ramat Gan, Israel. Email: franckr{at}mail.biu.ac.il.
This article analyzes whether the much-touted independence of the Conseil Constitutionnel (CC), the French Constitutional Court, is genuine. We construct a data set that comprises all the rulings of the CC between 1959 and 2006, taking into account the composition of the CC as well as the characteristics of the legislation reviewed by the judges. We find that the judges mainly rendered independent rulings when the polity was divided between left-wing and right-wing parties. (JEL D72, D73)