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7 - Courting Judicial Legitimacy

An Experimental Study of the Colombian Constitutional Court

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 August 2022

By
Sofía Forero-Alba  and
Juan Carlos Rodríguez-Raga
Edited by
Sandra Botero ,
Daniel M. Brinks  and
Ezequiel A. Gonzalez-Ocantos
Sandra Botero
Affiliation:
Universidad del Rosario, Colombia
Daniel M. Brinks
Affiliation:
University of Texas, Austin
Ezequiel A. Gonzalez-Ocantos
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
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Summary

Since its creation in 1991, the Constitutional Court has played an important role in the Colombian context because of the broad political, economic, cultural, and social impact of its decisions. Several rulings, however, have triggered fierce criticism, putting into question the very legitimacy of the court. This chapter seeks to identify some of the factors that contribute to improve the legitimacy of high courts in the eyes of the country’s citizens, especially when they hand down controversial rulings. The chapter reports a vignette survey experiment on college students aimed at determining under what conditions citizens are more likely to provide diffuse support to the court or to what extent the court’s legitimacy depends on its performance (specific support). It hypothesizes that the legitimacy of the court is affected by the way in which its decisions are framed and justified, and finds that by wording and framing judicial rulings so that they convey a sense of principled reasoning and neutrality, the court helps translate specific support into diffuse support. Specifically, decisions based on scientific reasoning are more suitable to achieve that goal than other types of argument, including those based on legal norms and precedent.

Keywords

Court legitimacyDiffuse supportPublic opinionVignette survey experimentsAbortionColombia
Type
Chapter
Information
The Limits of Judicialization
From Progress to Backlash in Latin America
 , pp. 164 - 194
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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