Most scholarly writings focus on the harmful effects of informal institutions. This article explores the positive influence of informal judicial institutions on the fundamental values of judicial systems. It develops a framework for assessing such institutions. The paper argues that the normative evaluation of informal judicial institutions is highly context-specific. Depending on their historical trajectories, different jurisdictions may emphasize different interests. Because of this, when evaluating informal judicial institutions, balancing the same values may yield different results in different jurisdictions. The recent trend towards formalization, supported by supranational institutions, goes hand-in-hand with the spreading narrative of good governance, emphasizing principles such as transparency or inclusion, principles that generally stand in tension with informality. This article cautions against emerging supranational templates insensitive to local practice.

While informal institutions significantly affect the functioning of courts, they also change the powers, position, and influence of individual actors in judicial systems. This Article analyzes how the presence of informal judicial institutions and practices reshapes the influence and importance of roles individual actors play in the functioning of the judiciary. The aim of this Article is three-fold. First, it maps the actors of informal judicial institutions and practices. Second, it stresses the importance of looking at actors who are not formally involved in particular judicial processes and recognized as decision-makers but have the ability to influence the judiciary informally. Third, it shows why it is necessary to keep in mind that also collective bodies can take part in informal judicial institutions and practices.

This article uses the case study of Slovakia and its lackluster experience with a judge-dominated judicial council to demonstrate that formal institutions have only limited impact on the ideational level. We show that the transformation of the Slovak post-communist judiciary relied on the presumption that judges‘ interests are automatically complementary to principles of the rule of law. Therefore, the majority of implemented reforms insulated the judiciary from the political branches of power, but allowed strong hierarchical relationships inside the courts to exist. In contrast to international expectations, judicial authorities used judicial empowerment to create or strengthen competing informal practices, which helped them to maximize their power. We argue that the lack of internalization of judicial independence might explain why institutional self-governance reforms failed to trigger changes in the professional role conception of judges in regimes riddled with deeply embedded informal institutions. In order to tackle this problem, we propose that future research on the relationship between institutional safeguards and decisional judicial independence should focus on the process through which actors internalize new institutional incentives.

Migrants are often presented in simplified terms that focus on the threats they experience or pose to the host society. This produces an image of migrants who have no agency and are victims of their circumstances or who respond to their circumstances by turning to crime and illegality. In this special issue, we reframe migration by highlighting how migrants leverage the various vulnerabilities they encounter, turning them into agency and self-sufficiency. We explore different types of vulnerability and agency for migrants in the Eurasian region, which often originate from the same sources, including structural factors, state and governance practices, social networks, and gender roles. Through interactions with a variety of state and nonstate actors, migrants have the ability to make choices that reduce uncertainty and risk in their migration environment and on returning home. These choices coexist with vulnerability and a lack of formal rights but do not replace them, creating complex and contingent relationships between precarity and agency.