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5 - Career Judge System and Court Decision Biases

Preliminary Evidence from Japan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 December 2019

By
Hatsuru Morita  and
Manabu Matsunaka
Edited by
Yun-chien Chang
Yun-chien Chang
Affiliation:
Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan
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Summary

Laws are made by the judiciary as well as by the legislative and the executive branches of government. This book chapter explores how the career judge system of Japan affects the efficiency of court decisions both theoretically and empirically. We find evidence that judges under the career judge system are tempted to place great weight on case-handling efficiency rather than substantive efficiency, which leads to socially efficient outcomes in some cases, but suboptimal outcomes in others. We also highlight several important factors for the analysis of court behavior.

Keywords

Japanese judiciarycareer judgeadministrative costcase managementsubstantive efficiencyinternational civil jurisdictionconsumer lawcorporate lawcase lawlegislation
Type
Chapter
Information
Selection and Decision in Judicial Process around the World
Empirical Inquires
 , pp. 132 - 159
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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