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The actual impact of judicial decisions often depends on the behavior of executive and legislative bodies that implement the rulings. Consequently, when a court hears a case involving the interests of those controlling the executive and legislative institutions, those interests can threaten to obstruct the court's intended outcome. In this paper, we evaluate whether and to what extent such constraints shape judicial rulings. Specifically, we examine how threats of noncompliance and legislative override influence decisions by the European Court of Justice (ECJ). Based on a statistical analysis of a novel dataset of ECJ rulings, we find that the preferences of member-state governments-whose interests are central to threats of noncompliance and override-have a systematic and substantively important impact on ECJ decisions.
The fate and quality of liberal democracies can depend crucially on the ability of courts to protect citizens against the state. Through judicial review, judges can annul the acts of legislatures, executives, and other political institutions whose actions conflict with the constitutional and statutory legal order.1 Whether courts exercise this power, however, depends on more than the de jure rules specifying the court's jurisdiction and function. For example, courts may temper their judgments to accommodate the interests of legislative or executive institutions that determine the promotion, tenure, and assignment of judges or the budgets and resources of the court (e.g., Helmke 2005; Ramsayer and Rasmusen 2003).
In this paper we focus on two relatively permanent and potentially extremely powerful constraints on judicial review in democracies. Courts generally rely on executive bodies and the legislature to implement their rulings. Consequently, when a court hears a case involving the interests of those controlling the executive and legislative institutions, those interests can threaten to disrupt implementation. This disruption can take one of two general forms; legislatures can threaten to override the court's ruling by drafting new legislation, and executives can threaten to obstruct, ignore, or misapply court rulings.
Scholars have argued that these threats can influence judicial decision-making. Some argue that, by tempering their rulings in anticipation of a possible override, courts can secure better outcomes than if they act myopically (e.g., Bednar, Eskridge, and Ferejohn 2001; Ferejohn and Shipan 1990; Ferejohn and Weingast 1992; GeIy and Spiller 1990; Rogers 2001). Others argue that override and noncompliance...