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Do the “Haves” Still Come Out Ahead? Resource Inequalities in Ideological Courts: The Case of the Israeli High Court of Justice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Yoav Dotan
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Abstract

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This research note examines the relations between judicial preferences, institutional concerns, and litigation outcomes. I found that in litigation before the Israeli High Court of Justice, the “haves” enjoyed only a limited advantage over “have nots” in litigation outcomes. I also found that when “have nots” were represented by legal counsel, the “haves” did not come out ahead. Ideological propensities of judges and considerations of institutional autonomy can ameliorate, to some extent, the inherent inferiority of “have nots” in litigation. It was also found that the mechanisms that worked in favor of “have nots” operated not only in litigation that reached final judicial disposition but also when the litigation was disposed through out-of-court settlements.

Type
Research Notes
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 33 , Issue 4: Do the “Haves” Still Come Out Ahead? , 1999 , pp. 1059 - 1080
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 by the Law and Society Association

Footnotes

An earlier version of this research note was presented at the conference “Do the ‘Haves’ Still Come Out Ahead?” at the Institute of Legal Studies, University of Wisconsin Law School, Madison, 1-2 May 1998. The research was supported in part by the Israel Science Foundation founded by the Israeli Academy for Science and Humanities. I am indebted to Joya Skappa for her excellent work as a research assistant and to Dorit Rubinstein for her assistance with the empirical survey.

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Cases Cited

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