¹ See Vincze, Attila, Dismissal of the President of the Hungarian Supreme Court: ECtHR Judgment Baka v. Hungary, 21 European Public Law 445 (2015); and David Kosař & Katarína Śipulová, The Strasbourg Court Meets Abusive Constitutionalism: Baka v. Hungary and the Rule of Law, 10 Hague Journal on the Rule of Law 83 (2018).Google Scholar

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⁶ Kosař & Śipulová, supra note 1.Google Scholar

⁷ Uzelac, Alan, Role and Status of Judges in Croatia, in Richterbild und Rechtsreform in Mitteleuropa (Paul Oberhammer ed., Manzsche Verlags 2001).Google Scholar

⁸ Bobek, Michal, The Administration of Courts in the Czech Republic – In Search of a Constitutional Balance, 16 European Public Law 251 (2010).Google Scholar

⁹ Kosař, David, Perils of Judicial Self-Government in Transitional Societies 279–80 (2016); and Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers on His Mission to the Slovak Republic (November 27-29, 2000), E/CN.4/2001/65/Add.3, paras. 27-33.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Vassileva, Radosveta, The Disheartening Speech by the President of Bulgaria's Supreme Court Which Nobody in Brussels Noticed, VerfBlog (July 11, 2018), https://verfassungsblog.de/the-disheartening-speech-by-the-president-of-bulgarias-supreme-court-which-nobody-in-brussels-noticed/.Google Scholar

¹¹ See Kosař, David, Politics of Judicial Independence and Judicial Accountability in Czechia: Bargaining in the Shadow of the Law between Court Presidents and the Ministry of Justice, 13 European Const. Law R. 96 (2017).Google Scholar

¹² See Spáč, Samuel and Kosař, David, Court Presidents in Slovakia: From Transmission Belts to Transmission Belts?, (unpublished manuscript, on file with authors, 2018).Google Scholar

¹³ Ibid. Google Scholar

¹⁴ Ibid. Google Scholar

¹⁵ See e.g. Denisov v Ukraine, Eur. Ct. H. R. (Judgment of 25 September 2018, app. no. 76639/11) (concerning the president of the influential Kyiv Administrative Court of Appeal).Google Scholar

¹⁶ Popova, Maria, Ukraine's Judiciary after Euromaidan, (unpublished manuscript, on file with authors 2018).Google Scholar

¹⁷ See e.g. Maria Popova, Politicized Justice in Emerging Democracies: A Study of Courts in Russia and Ukraine (2012); Lydia F. Müller, Judicial Administration in Transitional Eastern Countries, in Judicial Independence in Transition 937 (Anja Seibert-Fohr ed., 2012); and Kosař, supra note 9, at 279-280.Google Scholar

¹⁸ See the examples mentioned above.Google Scholar

¹⁹ See also notes 255-257 below.Google Scholar

²⁰ Wille v. Liechtenstein, Eur. Ct. H. R. (Judgment of the Grand Chamber of 28 October 1999, app. no. 28396/95).Google Scholar

²¹ Kierulf, Anine, Norway: New Chief Justice Appointed to the Supreme Court, I-Connect (March 1, 2016), http://www.iconnectblog.com/2016/03/norway-new-chief-justice/.Google Scholar

²² See Khan, Ilyas, Judge row prompts Pakistan democracy questions, BBC News (March 12, 2007), http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6442829.stm; and Pakistan's top judge reinstated, BBC News (July 20, 2007), http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6907685.stm. For more details, see Shoaib A. Ghias, Miscarriage of Chief Justice: Judicial Power and the Legal Complex in Pakistan under Musharraf, 35 Law & Social Inquiry 985 (2010).Google Scholar

²³ See Peru political turmoil: Supreme court president resigns over tapes scandal, BBC News (July 19, 2018), https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-44892884.Google Scholar

²⁴ See, e.g., Joe Cochrane, Top Indonesian Judge Held in Corruption Case, The New York Times (October 3, 2013), https://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/04/world/asia/indonesias-top-judge-held-in-corruption-case.html; and Exhead of Indonesia's constitutional court jailed for life for graft, Reuters (June 30, 2014), https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-indonesia-corruption/ex-head-of-indonesias-constitutional-court-jailed-for-life-for-graft-idUKKBN0F51Z420140630.Google Scholar

²⁵ See Rebecca Ananian-Welsh, Gabrielle Appleby & Andrew Lynch, The Tim Carmody Affair: Australia's Greatest Judicial Crisis (2016).Google Scholar

²⁶ Krenn, Christoph, Governing the European Court of Justice: Self-governance as a Model for Success, in this issue.Google Scholar

²⁷ See Robinson, Duncan, The 1st rule of ECJ fight club…is about to be broken, Financial Times: Brussels Blog (April 27, 2015), http://blogs.ft.com/brusselsblog/2015/04/27/the-lst-rule-of-ecj-flight-club-is-about-to-be-broken.Google Scholar

²⁸ See Reis, Jennifer W., Protocol No. 14 ECHR and Russian No. 14: The Current State of Affairs, 22 Harvard Human Rights Journal 293 (2009).Google Scholar

²⁹ See Çalı, Başak & Cunningham, Stewart, Judicial Self Government and the sui generis case of the European Court of Human Rights, in this issue.Google Scholar

³⁰ For more details, see Part A.Google Scholar

³¹ See Part D of this article.Google Scholar

³² For a thorough introduction, see Kosař, David, Beyond Judicial Councils: Forms, Rationales and Impact of Judicial Self-Government in Europe, in this issue.Google Scholar

³³ We define JSG body as a body with at least one judge whose primary function, entrenched in a legal norm, is to decide about issues regarding court administration and/or the career of a judge, and/or advise those who decide about such issues. See also Kosař, supra note 32.Google Scholar

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³⁵ Bobek, supra note 8, at 251, 252–254.Google Scholar

³⁶ A very rich source of information on court presidents not only in CEE countries, but also in some of the developed western democracies, are the national reports in Judicial Independence in Transition (Anja Seibert-Fohr ed., 2012); especially by Adam Bodnar and Łukasz Bojarski on Poland at 667, by Zoltán Fleck on Hungary at 793, by Ramona Coman and Cristina Dallara on Romania at 835, by Olga Schwartz and Elga Sykiainen on Russia at 971.Google Scholar

³⁷ Piana, Daniela, Judicial Accountabilities in New Europe: From Rule of Law to Quality of Justice 43–4 (2010); see also David Kosař, The Least Accountable Branch, 11 Int'l J. of Const. Law 234 (2013) setting straight some claims that Daniela Piana makes in her book.Google Scholar

³⁸ Di Federico, Giuseppe, Judicial Independence in Italy, in Seibert-Fohr, supra note 17, at 357, 378–379.Google Scholar

³⁹ Schwartz & Sykiainen, supra note 36, at 1019-1021.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ This was the case of Slovakia, see Kosař, supra note 9, at 279-280.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Solomon, Peter H., Authoritarian legality and informal practices: Judges, lawyers and the state in Russia and China, 43 Communist and Post-Communist Studies 351, 354 (2010); see also Peter H. Solomon, The Accountability of Judges in Post Communist States: From Bureaucratic to Professional Accountability, in Seibert-Fohr, supra note 17, at 909. On judicial government in post-Soviet countries, see also Popova, supra note 17; and Müller, supra note 17, at 937.Google Scholar

⁴² Kosař, , supra note 11.Google Scholar

⁴³ Kosař, , supra note 9, at 68-72.Google Scholar

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⁴⁵ Pfander, James E., The Chief Justice, the Appointment of Inferior Officers, and the “Court of Law” Requirement, 107 Northwestern University Law Review 1125 (2013), and Dawn M. Chutkow, The Chief Justice as Executive: Judicial Conference Committee Appointments, 2 J. of L. and Courts 301 (2014).Google Scholar

⁴⁶ See e.g. Ghias, supra note 22; Cristina Bonoan, Alejandro Ciencia & Björn Dressel, Thrilla in Manilla: Impeachment of the Phillipines’ Chief Justice, East Asia Forum, (March 22, 2012), http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2012/03/22/thrilla-in-manila-impeachment-of-the-philippine-s-chief-justice/; Stefanus Hendrianto, The Rise and Fall of Historic Chief Justices: Constitutional Politics and Judicial Leadership in Indonesia, 25 Washington International Law Journal 489 (2016); Stefanus Hendrianto, Law and Politics of Constitutional Courts: Indonesia and the Search for Judicial Heroes (2018); and Rohit De & Tarunabh Khaitan, In Defence of Constitutionalism, I-Connect (January 19, 2018), http://www.iconnectblog.com/2018/01/in-defence-of-constitutionalism/.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Pettys, supra note 34. See also Vincze, supra note 1; and Kosař & Śipulová 2018, supra note 1; Kierulf, supra note 21; and Bonoan, Ciencia & Dressel, supra note 46.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ See e. g. Oleksandr Volkov v. Ukraine, Eur. Ct. H. R. (Judgment of 9 January 2013, app. no. 21722/11); Denisov v Ukraine, supra note 15; Olujić v. Croatia, Eur. Ct. H. R. (Judgment of 5 February 2009, app. no. 22330/05); Harabin v. Slovakia, Eur. Ct. H. R. (Judgment of 20 November 2012, app. no. 58688/11); Baka v. Hungary, Eur. Ct. H. R. (Judgment of 23 June 2016, app. no. 20261/12); and Wille v. Liechtenstein, supra note 20.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ See e. g. the Opinion No. 19 (2016) of the Consultative Council of European Judges, The Role of Court Presidents, https://rm.coe.int/1680748232; Report on the Independence of the Judicial System, Part I: The Independence of Judges, Venice Commission, CDL-AD(2010)004; or the Opinion on the Draft Law on the Judiciary and the Draft Law on the Status of Judges of Ukraine, Venice Commission, CDL-AD(2007)003.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ See Tsereteli, Nino & Smekal, Hubert, The Judicial Self-Government at the International Level: A New Research Agenda, in this issue.Google Scholar

⁵¹ We are using the term “transnational courts” so as to cover both international and supranational courts.Google Scholar

⁵² See e.g. Bruinsma, Fred J. & Parmentier, Stephan, Interview with Mr. Luzius Wildhaber, President of the ECHR, 1 Neth. Q. Hum. Rts. 185 (2003); and Fernanda Nicola & Bill Davies, Judges as Diplomats in Advancing the Rule of Law: A Conversation with President Koen Lenaerts and Justice Stephen Breyer, 66 American University Law Review 1159 (2017).Google Scholar

⁵³ Terris, Daniel, Cesare Romano & Leigh Swigart, The international judge: an introduction to the men and women who decide the world's cases 159 (2007).Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Ibid. Google Scholar

⁵⁵ See Dunoff, Jeffrey L. & Pollack, Mark A., International Judicial Practices: Opening the ‘Black Box’ of International Courts, Michigan Journal of International Law (forthcoming).Google Scholar

⁵⁶ See Squatrito, Theresa, Judicial Diplomacy: International Courts and their Agents on a Mission (paper presented at ECPR General Conference in Hamburg on 23 August 2018). See also Nicole de Silva, Beyond Adjudication: International Courts’ Agency and Entrepreneurship in Governance (paper presented at LSA conference in Toronto on 7 June 2018).Google Scholar

⁵⁷ For instance, the ICJ President takes the lead in framing the ICJ judgment as she circulates the list of issues that she thinks should be addressed in the judgment after the oral hearing, she speaks last at the deliberation of judges and indicates her views of the arguments and rationales that enjoy majority support, and she sits automatically (unless she is in the minority) in the three-person judgment drafting committee. For further details, see Dunoff & Pollack, supra note 55.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ For instance, the ICJ President has been issuing an annual report since 1968, has been presenting this report at the regular session of the UN General Assembly, and initiated a practice of providing a private briefing to the Security Council on the pending cases in 2000 (see Dunoff & Pollack, supra note 55).Google Scholar

⁵⁹ But even there the scholarship focuses primarily on the office of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (see in particular Danelski & Artemus Ward, supra note 34; and literature in note 34) and to a large extent neglects the role of lower federal courts and state courts presidents.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ See in particular Solomon 2012, supra note 41, at 918; Müller, supra note 17; Kosař, supra note 9, at 390; and Anna Wallerman, Review of David Kosař, Perils of Judicial Self-Government in Transitional Societies, 55 Common Market Law Review 676, 677 (2018). For further literature, see Part D.Google Scholar

⁶¹ We revisit this claim in Part D.Google Scholar

⁶² See in particular Piana, supra note 37, at 43-44.Google Scholar

⁶³ See Piana, Daniela, The Power Knocks at the Courts’ Back Door – Two Waves of Postcommunist Judicial Reforms, 42 Comparative Political Studies 816 (2009); and Piana, supra note 37, at 162-165. Note that other scholars have shown that Piana's two-wave theory does not work in all CEE countries. See Kosař, supra note 9, at 10-11 (on Slovakia).Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Kosař, , supra note 9, at 16-19 and 398-405.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ See Kosař, , supra note 11 (on Czechia).Google Scholar

⁶⁶ For a comprehensive explanation of why informal powers are important, see Dressel, Sanchez-Urribarri & Stroh, supra note 44.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Understandably, in some countries, court presidents have little or no influence over selection of judges. For instance, in Romania it is the National Institute of Magistracy, which is coordinated by the Superior Council of Magistracy, that is responsible for recruiting and training new judges. The Superior Council of Magistracy is strongly anti-hierarchical and court presidents have little influence within it. See Bianca Selejan-Gutan, Romania: Perils of a “Perfect Euro-Model” of Judicial Council, in this issue; and Bogdan lancu, Perils of Sloganised Constitutional Concepts, Notably that of ‘Judicial Independence', 13 European Const. Law R. 582, 594 (2017).Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Dothan, Shai, The Motivations of Individual Judges and How They Act as a Group, in this issue.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Krenn, supra note 26; and Dothan, supra note 68. Note also that according to the Art. 255 TFEU the European Parliament proposes one member, which is than included by the President of the CJEU in the list of Panel members appointed by the Member States.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ O'Brien, Patrick, Never let a Crisis go to Waste: Politics, Personality and Judicial Self-Government in Ireland, in this issue.Google Scholar

⁷¹ Kühn, Zdeněk, Judicial Administration Reforms in Central-Eastern Europe: Lessons to be Learned, In Seibert-Fohr, supra note 17, at 603, 612; and Kosař, supra note 11, at 97 and 100.Google Scholar

⁷² For further details on the selection of judges, see Kosař, supra note 9, at 188-191 and 215-216.Google Scholar

⁷³ The only legal requirements for being appointed a judge are the following general criteria: the Czech nationality, the age of thirty, a clean criminal record, a negative lustration certificate, legal education, and three years of practice.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ MoJ has tried to wrestle some of the power back in 2017 by issuing, probably unconstitutional, instructions detailing the criteria and the process of selection and training of the candidates.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ This arguably makes these newly selected judges, handpicked by court presidents, more susceptible to eventual pressure by court presidents, which in turn has a potentially negative impact on judicial independence.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ Avbelj, Matej, Contextual Analysis of Judicial Governance in Slovenia, in this issue.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ Spáč, Samuel, Katarína Śipulová & Marína Urbániková, Capturing the Judiciary from Inside: The Story of Judicial Self-Governance in Slovakia, in this issue. But note that presidents of regional courts have greater influence than presidents of district courts.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ Vauchez, Antoine, The Strange Non-Death of Statism: Tracing The Ever Protracted Rise of Self-Government in France, In this issue; Antoine Garapon & Harold Epineuse, Judicial Independence in France, in Seibert-Fohr, supra note 17, at 273, 285–286.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ Avbelj, supra note 76. See especially the citation of a resignation letter by the former Judicial Council member, Nevenka Śorli, who claimed that it is the Personnel Councils that make the decision on promotion of a judge.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ Spáč, , Śipulová & Urbániková, supra note 77.Google Scholar

⁸¹ Seibert-Fohr, Anja, Judicial Independence in Germany, in Seibert-Fohr, supra note 17, at 447, 460.Google Scholar

⁸² See Levitt, Stephen Ross, The Life and Times of a Local Court Judge in Berlin, 10 German L.J. 169, 197–8 (2009); and Seibert-Fohr, supra note 81, at 502.Google Scholar

⁸³ For taxonomy of these mechanisms, see Kosař, supra note 9, at 73-120.Google Scholar

⁸⁴ This is the case in Czechia, Slovakia or France; see Kosař, supra note 9, at 214, 234; Spáč, Śipulová & Urbániková, supra note 77; and Garapon & Epineuse, supra note 78, at 292.Google Scholar

⁸⁵ Spáč, Śipulová & Urbániková, supra note 77; Kosař, supra note 9, at 212, 232.Google Scholar

⁸⁶ This is the case of Romania or Slovenia, see Gutan, supra note 67; and Avbelj, supra note 76.Google Scholar

⁸⁷ For a recent example beyond Europe, see the controversial actions of the Chief Justice of India in De & Khaitan, supra note 46.Google Scholar

⁸⁸ See also below on the jurisprudential powers of court presidents.Google Scholar

⁸⁹ E.g. in Italy, Czechia, Netherlands, see Simone Benvenuti & Davide Paris, Judicial Self-Government in Italy: Merits, Limits and the Reality of an Export Model, in this issue; Adam Blisa, Tereza Papoušková & Marína Urbániková, Judicial Self-Government in Czechia: Europe's Black Sheep?, in this issue; and Elaine Mak, Judicial Self-Government in the Netherlands: Demarcating Autonomy, in this issue.Google Scholar

⁹⁰ Kosař, , supra note 9, at 80.Google Scholar

⁹¹ France, see Garapon & Epineuse, supra note 78, at 288.Google Scholar

⁹² See Germany e. g., see Siebert-Fohr, supra note 81, at 486; and Fabian Wittreck, German Judicial Self-Government: Institutions and constraints of self-government in Germany, in this issue.Google Scholar

⁹³ Czechia, Ireland, Italy, France, Netherlands and others, see Blisa, Papoušková & Urbániková, supra note 89; O'Brien, supra note 70; Vauchez, supra note 78; and Mak, supra note 89.Google Scholar

⁹⁴ Cf. Slovakia, in which cases are since 2002 assigned randomly by a computer, see Spáč, Śipulová & Urbániková, supra note 77.Google Scholar

⁹⁵ Similar mechanism exists in Romania, but is not allegedly completely resistant to rigging, see Coman & Dallara, supra note 36, at 862.Google Scholar

⁹⁶ On Harabin in Slovakia, see Kosař, supra note 9, at 320-321, 327-329. See also recent Indian controversy in India in De & Khaitan, supra note 87.Google Scholar

⁹⁷ Kosař, , supra note 9, at 81; and Popova, supra note 41, at 136-138.Google Scholar

⁹⁸ E. g. in Germany or Czechia. See Seibert-Fohr, supra note 81, at 481-483; or David Kosař, Rozvrh práce: Klíčový nástroj pro boj s korupcí soudců a nezbytný předpoklad nezávislosti řadových soudců, 154 Právník 1049 (2015).Google Scholar

⁹⁹ This goes especially for the countries with electronic randomized distribution of cases, see supra notes 94 and 95.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁰ Mak E. g., supra note 89.Google Scholar

¹⁰¹ Zarchin, Tomer, Haason, Nir & Kubovich, Yaniv, Jerusalem Judge Commits a Suicide Due to Workload, Haaretz (February 9, 2011), https://www.haaretz.com/1.5119677.Google Scholar

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¹⁰³ Netherlands, Czechia, Slovenia and others, see Mak, supra note 89; Blisa, Papoušková & Urbániková, supra note 89; and Avbelj, supra note 76.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁴ E.g. in Czechia or Slovakia, see Kosař, supra note 9, at 221-222, 229, 275, 285.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁵ This goes for the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, see Pfander, supra note 45, at 1132-1137.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁶ This is the case of the ECtHR, on legal staff, see Dothan, supra note 68; or Germany, see Seibert-Fohr, supra note 81, at 456-457.Google Scholar

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¹⁰⁸ See Pfander, supra note 45, and Chutkow, supra note 45, at 303-304.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁹ This happened to a certain degree in Slovakia, see Kosař, supra note 9, at 361.Google Scholar

¹¹⁰ Çalı & Cunningham supra note 29.Google Scholar

¹¹¹ The extra resources may include, among other things, more law clerks, more secretarial support, and special research divisions; see Kosař, supra note 9, at 403.Google Scholar

¹¹² This is the case of virtually all courts where such a body exists.Google Scholar

¹¹³ Czechia, Netherlands (court presidents influence composition of all chambers via Management Board presided by them); see Kosař, supra note 11, at 100; Mak, supra note 89.Google Scholar

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¹¹⁹ Such as referral of the case to the Grand Chamber at the ECtHR, see Çalı & Cunningham, supra note 29; CJEU's President similarly wields substantive power regarding case assignment, see Krenn, supra note 26.Google Scholar

¹²⁰ This is what the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Harlan Fisk Stone did in the 1940's, see Pamela C. Corley, Amy Steigerwalt & Artemus Ward, The Puzzle of Unanimity: Consensus on the United States Supreme Court (2013), cited according to Bentsen, supra note 114, at 192. Fifty years later, Carsten Smith did the same once he became the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Norway, see Bentsen, supra note 114, at 196-198.Google Scholar

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¹²² Kosař, , supra note 9, at 320-321.Google Scholar

¹²³ The “transmission belt” metaphor suggests that court presidents, who could be recalled by the ruling party/individual anytime at a whim, become the conduit of the ruling party/individual influence over individual judges. The main role of the court presidents is then to “transmit” orders from the ruling party/individual to individual judges in sensitive cases. See e.g. Kosař, supra note 11, at 101, 105, 117, and 121-122; and Rachel Ellett, Raul Sanchez Urribarri & Alexei Trochev, Chief Justice as a Political Agent: Evidence from Zambia, Venezuela, and Ukraine, paper presented at the ECPR General Conference in Prague on 9 September 2016 (on file with author).Google Scholar

¹²⁴ Popova, supra note 41, at 163; and Alexei Trochev, Meddling with Justice: Competitive Politics, Impunity, and Distrusted Courts in Post-Orange Ukraine, 18 Demokratizatsiya 122, 133 (2010).Google Scholar

¹²⁵ This is the case of Czechia, or, to some degree, of Netherlands, where court presidents implement court's budget through the Management Boards; see Blisa, Papoušková & Urbániková, supra note 89, and Mak, supra note 89.Google Scholar

¹²⁶ Slovakia E.g., see Spáč, Śipulová & Urbániková, supra supra note 77.Google Scholar

¹²⁷ See Popova, supra note 41, at 134.Google Scholar

¹²⁸ Id. Google Scholar

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¹³⁰ See Kosař, supra note 9, at 361 and 369.Google Scholar

¹³¹ See Krenn, supra note 26, and his description of the role of the then Court President Skouris in the institutional reform of the General Court. Moreover, the CJEU's Court President has the power to further shape the image of the Court in that external activities of judges are subject to prior approval by their peers, and the Court President has quite a significant say in this.Google Scholar

¹³² Çalı & Cunningham, supra note 29, describe the role of the then ECtHR's President Jean-Paul Costa in the introduction of the Advisory Panel and the suggested influence over its composition.Google Scholar

¹³³ See e. g. Lo, P. Y., Chief Justice McLachlin and Hong Kong, I-Connect (October 1, 2017), http://www.iconnectblog.com/2017/12/lo-on-chief-justice-mclachlin/; for speeches of the Justices of the High Court of Australia see http://hcourt.gov.au/publications/speeches/speeches-by-current-justices; for speeches by the judges from New Zealand see https://courtsofnz.govt.nz/publications/speeches-and-papers; and others.Google Scholar

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¹³⁵ Benvenuti & Paris, supra note 89.Google Scholar

¹³⁶ Hungary, Baka v., supra note 48, para 44.Google Scholar

¹³⁷ For further details, see Kosař & Śipulová2018, supra note 1.Google Scholar

¹³⁸ See note 5 above.Google Scholar

¹³⁹ See note 5 above.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁰ See Case C 216/18 PPU Minister for Justice and Equality v LM; and the “The CJEU's Deficiency Judgment” symposium at the Verfassungsblog (https://verfassungsblog.de/category/focus/after-celmer-focus/). See also the other two pending cases initiated by the European Commission before the CJEU (Case C-192/18, Commission v. Poland, pending; and Case C-619/18, Commission v. Poland, pending). In December 2017, the European Commission also launched the so-called Article 7 proceedings against Poland over changes to the judicial system.Google Scholar

¹⁴¹ See. e. g. Jeffrey K. Staton, Judicial Power and Strategic Communication in Mexico (2010); Shai Dothan, Reputation and Judicial Tactics (2015); Georg Vanberg, The Politics of Constitutional Review In Germany (2005); Lawrence Baum, Judges and Their Audiences: A Perspective on Judicial Behavior (2006); Olga Frishman, Court-Audience Relationships in the 21^st Century, Mississippi Law Journal (forthcoming); Nuno Garoupa & Tom Ginsburg, Judicial Reputation: A Comparative Theory (2017); the CCJE also lists “maintaining and developing relations with other bodies and institutions” as one of the key roles of the court president, see supra note 49.Google Scholar

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¹⁴⁴ Reference re Supreme Court Act, ss. 5 and 6, [2014] 1 S.C.R. 433, 2014 SCC 21. For further details, see Carissima Mathen. The Shadow of Absurdity and the Challenge of Easy Cases: Looking Back on the Supreme Court Act Reference, 71 Supreme Court Law Review 161 (2015).Google Scholar

¹⁴⁵ See e.g. Stefanus Hendrianto, The Puzzle of Judicial Communication in Indonesia: The Media, the Court, and the Chief Justice, In Justices and Journalists: The Global Perspective 141 (Richard Davis & David Taras eds., 2017).Google Scholar

¹⁴⁶ See e.g. Robinson, Duncan & Barker, Alex, EU's top judge defends ECJ against charges of integration agenda, Financial Times (November 22, 2016), https://www.ft.com/content/0e132ef8-af0c-11e6-a37c-f4a01f1b0fa1.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁷ Wojciech Sadurski, Constitutionalism and the Enlargement of Europe (2012), at 1. For Wildhaber's vision of the Strasbourg Court, see Luzius Wildhaber, The European Court of Human Rights: The Past, The Present, The Future. 22 American University International Law Review 521 (2007).Google Scholar

¹⁴⁸ Germany E. g., see Seibert-Fohr, supra note 81, at 506.Google Scholar

¹⁴⁹ The Supreme Administrative Court's President, Josef Baxa, is a regular guest of radio show called How He Sees It, and the Constitutional Court's Chief Justice Pavel Rychetský frequently gives interviews on topics ranging from the judicial to the purely political ones; see e. g. Martin Biben & Markéta Śrajbrová, Prezident nemůže protahovat vládnutí kabinetu bez důvěry neomezeně, Hospodářské noviny (November 1, 2017), https://archiv.ihned.cz/c1-65935270-prezident-nemuze-protahovat-vladnuti-kabinetu-bez-duvery-neomezene-hrozi-mu-ustavni-zaloba-tvrdi-rychetsky; or Kristýna Novotná, Mám obavy ze Zemanovy kohorty panošů, Ovčáčka by měli na hodinu vyhodit, říká šéf Ústavního soudu Rychetský, iRozhlas (January 8, 2018), https://www.irozhlas.cz/zpravy-domov/pavel-rychetskymilos-zemanjiri-ovcacek_1801080600_ogo. Note that in the polls assessing the popularity of public officials, Rychetský often comes out on top of the ladder.Google Scholar

¹⁵⁰ Johannès, Franck, Le premier président de la Cour de cassation s'inquiète du pouvoir croissant du Conseil d'Etat, Le Monde (December 21, 2015), https://www.lemonde.fr/police-justice/article/2015/12/21/le-premier-president-de-la-cour-de-cassation-s-inquiete-du-pouvoir-croissant-du-conseil-d-etat_4835887_1653578.html. For further background of this rare public disagreement between the First President of the French Cour de Cassation Bertrand Louvel and the Vice-President of Conseil d'État over the dualism of the French judiciary, see Marie-Christine de Montecler, Duel à distance sur le dualisme juridictionnel, Dalloz Actualite (July 28, 2017), https://www.dalloz-actualite.fr/flash/duel-distance-sur-dualisme-juridictionnel#.W-vVI_eKNzjw.Google Scholar

¹⁵¹ See e. g. the Twitter account of the Czech SAC's President Josef Baxa, at https://twitter.com/josefbaxa2.Google Scholar

¹⁵² David, supra note 142.Google Scholar

¹⁵³ Id. Google Scholar

¹⁵⁴ Canada Elections Act, S.C. 2000, c.9, s. 14(1).Google Scholar

¹⁵⁵ About the Judges, Supreme Court of Canada (August 28, 2017), http://www.scc-csc.ca/judges-juges/about-apropos-eng.aspx.Google Scholar

¹⁵⁶ Mak, supra note 89.Google Scholar

¹⁵⁷ Avbelj, supra note 76.Google Scholar

¹⁵⁸ O'Brien, , supra note 70.Google Scholar

¹⁵⁹ Wittreck, supra note 92.Google Scholar

¹⁶⁰ See Pérez, Aida Torres, Judicial self-government and judicial independence: the political capture of the General Council of the Judiciary in Spain, in this issue.Google Scholar

¹⁶¹ Vauchez, supra note 78.Google Scholar

¹⁶² See Bodnar, Adam & Bojarski, Lukasz, Judicial Independence in Poland, In Seibert-Fohr, supra note 17, at 673.Google Scholar

¹⁶³ This was the case in Slovakia during the era of the Chief Justice Śtefan Harabin (2009-2014). See Spáč, Śipulová & Urbániková, supra note 77; and Kosař, supra note 9.Google Scholar

¹⁶⁴ See supra notes 1 and 136-137.Google Scholar

¹⁶⁵ See Spáč, Śipulová & Urbániková, supra note 77.Google Scholar

¹⁶⁶ This was the case in Slovakia during the era of the Chief Justice Śtefan Harabin (2009-2014). See Spáč, Śipulová & Urbániková, supra note 77; and Kosař, supra note 9.Google Scholar

¹⁶⁷ This has been the case in Czechia since the late 1990s. See Kosař, supra note 11.Google Scholar

¹⁶⁸ Note that court presidents may build such loyalty by other means as well – for instance, by a selective use of administrative power or by not initiating the disciplinary motion against a judge who deserves it.Google Scholar

¹⁶⁹ See Part D.Google Scholar

¹⁷⁰ For potential avenues for future research see Part E.Google Scholar

¹⁷¹ For explanation, why we omitted Spain and Turkey and why we added Russia, see below.Google Scholar

¹⁷² That is why we omit Spain and Turkey, because we simply do not have sufficient, relevant and accessible information on Spanish and Turkish court presidents.Google Scholar

¹⁷³ See also Solomon 2012, supra note 41; Solomon, supra note 41, at 354; Schwartz & Sykiainen, supra note 36, in particular at 995-996, 1003, 1008-1009, 1012, 1018-1027 and 1031-1034; Popova, supra note 17.Google Scholar

¹⁷⁴ For pragmatic purposes, we leave aside the ancillary powers of court presidents as we do not have sufficient information about them and they are often incommensurable.Google Scholar

¹⁷⁵ We include both formal and informal powers of court presidents, as in many cases the informal powers are interlinked with the formal ones and may be even more consequential.Google Scholar

¹⁷⁶ This categorization is inspired by the table in Nuno Garoupa & Tom Ginsburg, Guarding the Guardians: Judicial Councils and Judicial Independence, 57 Am. J. Comp. L. 103, 122 (2009).Google Scholar

¹⁷⁷ See e.g. the recent developments in Poland and Hungary. However, court presidents’ powers have been subject to changes also in Czechia, Ireland, Slovakia, as well at the CJEU and the ECtHR.Google Scholar

¹⁷⁸ We address this issue in Part D below.Google Scholar

¹⁷⁹ We address this issue in Part D below.Google Scholar

¹⁸⁰ Solomon, supra note 41; Lawrence David, The Face of an Institution: Beverley McLachlin's Reinvention of the Role of the Chief Justice of Canada, I-CONnect, (December 7, 2017) http://www.iconnectblog.com/2017/12/david-on-chief-justice-mclachlin/.Google Scholar

¹⁸¹ For a similar opinion, see also Solomon, supra note 41, at 918.Google Scholar

¹⁸² See Seibert-Fohr, supra note 81, at 481-483.Google Scholar

¹⁸³ See Art. 21a Gerichtsverfassungsgesetz (German Constitutional Law on Courts).Google Scholar

¹⁸⁴ See Judgment of the German Federal Administrative Court of 28 November 1975 (BVerGE 50, 11 = NJW 1976, 1224).Google Scholar

¹⁸⁵ Riedel, Johannes, Recruitment, Professional Evaluation and Career of Judges and Prosecutors in Germany, In, Recruitment, Professional Evaluation and Career of Judges and Prosecutors in Europe (Di Federico, Giuseppe ed., IRSIG-CNR 2005) 69-126, at 98-107.Google Scholar

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¹⁸⁷ Levitt, supra note 82, at 197-198; and Seibert-Fohr, supra note 81, at 502.Google Scholar

¹⁸⁸ Mak, supra note 89.Google Scholar

¹⁸⁹ See Gutan, supra note 67; and lancu, supra note 67, at 594-596.Google Scholar

¹⁹⁰ See Gutan, supra note 67. Note that the mandate of court presidents shall be prolonged to four years.Google Scholar

¹⁹¹ See Gutan, supra note 67.Google Scholar

¹⁹² See Gutan, supra note 67.Google Scholar

¹⁹³ Benvenuti & Paris, supra note 89.Google Scholar

¹⁹⁴ O'Brien, , supra note 70.Google Scholar

¹⁹⁵ See O'Regan, Michael, Judicial appointments Bill passes in Dáil and now goes to Seanad, The Irish Times (May 31, 2018), https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/oireachtas/judicial-appointments-bill-passes-in-d%C3%A1il-and-now-goes-to-seanad-1.3515540?mode=amp.Google Scholar

¹⁹⁶ See Solomon 2010, above note 41; Solomon 2012, supra note 41; and Schwartz & Sykiainen, supra note 36, in particular at 995-996, 1003, 1008-1009, 1012, 1018-1027 and 1031-1034; and Popova, supra note 41.Google Scholar

¹⁹⁷ See Müller, supra note 41, at 965 (on Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia, Azaerbaijan and Belarus); Popova, supra note 41 (on Ukraine); and Alexei Trochev, Patronal politics, judicial networks and collective judicial autonomy in post-Soviet Ukraine, 39 International Political Science Review 662 (2018), at 670-674.Google Scholar

¹⁹⁸ Ibid., at 354. See also Solomon, supra note 41.Google Scholar

¹⁹⁹ Çalı & Cunningham supra note 29.Google Scholar

²⁰⁰ See supra note 60.Google Scholar

²⁰¹ Kosař, , supra note 9, at 390-398.Google Scholar

²⁰² Kosař, , supra note 11, at 110-114.Google Scholar

²⁰³ Kosař, , supra note 9, at 390.Google Scholar

²⁰⁴ See Bobek e.g., supra note 35, at 253-254 (on Czechia); or Piana, supra note 37, at 43-44 (on Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria and Romania); Solomon, supra note 41, at 354 (on Russia); Müller, supra note 41, at 965 (Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia, Azaerbaijan and Belarus); Schwartz & Sykiainen, supra note 36, in particular at 995-996, 1003, 1008-1009, 1012, 1018-1027 and 1031-1034 (on Russia); and, on Slovakia, Alexander Bröstl, At the Crossroads on the Way to an Independent Slovak Judiciary, In Systems of justice in transition: Central European experiences since 1989 (Přibáň, Jiří, Roberts, Pauline & Young, James eds., 2003) at 141, 143.Google Scholar

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²⁰⁷ Solomon, supra note 41, at 918.Google Scholar

²⁰⁸ Anja Seibert-Fohr, Judicial Independence – The Normativity of an Evolving Transnational Principle, In Seibert-Fohr, supra note 17, at 1279, 1329.Google Scholar

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²¹⁰ The term ranges from seven to ten years, depending on the tier of the Czech judiciary.Google Scholar

²¹¹ See e. g. Kosař, supra note 11; and Blisa, Papoušková & Urbániková, supra note 89.Google Scholar

²¹² This is a common practice (at least for apex courts) in Japan; see David S. Law, The Anatomy of a Conservative Court: Judicial Review in Japan, 87 Texas Law Review 1545 (2009).Google Scholar

²¹³ See notes 1-17.Google Scholar

²¹⁴ In fact, none of Wildhaber's successors (Jean-Paul Costa, Nicholas Bratza, Dean Spielmann, and Guido Raimundi) presided over the ECtHR for more than 5 years (and usually much less).Google Scholar

²¹⁵ Note that Gil Carlos Rodríguez Iglesias held the office of the CJEU President for 9 years (1994-2003), Vassilios Skouris for 13 years (2003-2015), and Koen Lenaerts has been the CJEU's President since 2015.Google Scholar

²¹⁶ This has happened in Czechia. See Kosař, supra note 11; and Blisa, Papoušková & Urbániková, supra note 89.Google Scholar

²¹⁷ This seems to be the case in Slovakia. See Spáč, Śipulová & Urbániková, supra note 77.Google Scholar

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²¹⁹ Note that there is the Specialized Criminal Court, established in 2009, but it operates in a very similar way as the general criminal courts and its judgments can be appealed to the Slovak Supreme Court.Google Scholar

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²²⁹ O'Brien, supra note 70. However, the proposed Judicial Council will be chaired by the Chief Justice and it is unlikely (at least in the short term) that the fairly consensual approach that has been taken by successive Chief Justices in relation to the Courts Service would not also be carried through into the operation of the Judicial Council.Google Scholar

²³⁰ Wittreck, supra note 92.Google Scholar

²³¹ We are grateful for this insight to Julio Ríos-Figueroa.Google Scholar

²³² Wittreck, supra note 92.Google Scholar

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²³⁴ See supra notes 22 and 244.Google Scholar

²³⁵ This makes the choice of their successors extremely difficult.Google Scholar

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²³⁷ Chief Justice Roger Taney delivered the infamous majority opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford (60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1857)), ruling that African Americans could not be considered citizens and that Congress could not prohibit slavery in the territories of the United States. For further details, see Don E. Fehrenbacher, The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics (2001).Google Scholar

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²³⁹ This is a standard practice in Austria, Germany and France (for Conseillers d'État). Google Scholar

²⁴⁰ For further details, see Kosař, supra note 9, at 173-176, 248-250.Google Scholar

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²⁴² See Trochev, supra note 197, at 670-674.Google Scholar

²⁴³ Barmes, Lizzie & Malleson, Kate, The Legal Profession as Gatekeeper to the Judiciary: Design Faults in Measures to Enhance Diversity, 74 The Modern Law Review 245 (2011).Google Scholar

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²⁴⁵ See note 5 above.Google Scholar

²⁴⁶ See Georgakopoulos, Nicholas, Independence in the Career and Recognition Judiciary, 7 U. Chi. L. Sch. Roundtable 205 (2000); or Nuno Garoupa & Tom Ginsburg, Hybrid Judicial Career Structures: Reputation Versus Legal Tradition, 3 Journal of Legal Analysis 411 (2011).Google Scholar

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²⁴⁸ Kosař, , supra note 9, at 113-120.Google Scholar

²⁴⁹ Boyron, Sophie, The Independence of the Judiciary: A Question of Identity, In Independence, Accountability, and the Judiciary (Canivet, Guy, Andenas, Mads & Fairgrieve, Duncan eds., 2006), at 77, 77–78. See also Mirjan Damaška's famous distinction between the hierarchical ideal of the officialdom and the coordinate ideal of officialdom (Mirjan R. Damaška, The Faces of Justice and State Authority: A Comparative Approach to the Legal Process (1986) at 16-46 and 181-239.Google Scholar

²⁵⁰ We are, of course, aware that there are other factors than the career/recognition distinction that may affext the strength of hierarchical principle.Google Scholar

²⁵¹ See notes 1-17.Google Scholar

²⁵² See Spáč, , Śipulová & Urbániková, supra note 77 (regarding the former Chief Justice of the Slovak Republic Śtefan Harabin).Google Scholar

²⁵³ See Śledzińska-Simon 2018, supra note 4.Google Scholar

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²⁵⁵ See notes 1-17.Google Scholar

²⁵⁶ On the transmission belt metaphor, see note 123.Google Scholar

²⁵⁷ Trochev, Alexei, Judicial Clientelism in Kazakhstan, (unpublished manuscript, on file with authors). See also notes 18-19.Google Scholar

²⁵⁸ See notes 1-17.Google Scholar

²⁵⁹ See Gutan, supra note 67; and lancu, supra note 67, at 594-596.Google Scholar

²⁶⁰ See ibid; and Part C.Google Scholar