The Legitimacy of Highest Courts’ Rulings: Judicial Deliberations and Beyond

In Judicial Deliberations: A Comparative Analysis of Judicial Transparency and Legitimacy (2004), the American-French scholar Mitchel Lasser has, among other things, tried to re-establish the strengths of the French cassation system. Using Lasser's approach and ideas as a starting point for this book, judges from the French, Belgian and Dutch Cassation Courts reflect on the challenges that their Courts are facing. Specific attention is also given to the Strasbourg Court on Human Rights, that has been so important for the moral legitimacy of the European legal order, and to courts in post-communist systems, which face many similar challenges and are under even greater pressure to modernise. The book is a multidisciplinary contribution to the international debate about the legitimacy of highest courts' rulings, the concept of judicial leadership, and offers a new perspective in the USA-versus-Europe debate.

1. Introduction. The problematic legitimacy of Supreme Courts' rulings Nick Huls; Part I. The Comparative Enterprise: 2. Transforming deliberations Mitchel Lasser; 3. What do we lack? Ugo Mattei; 4. A socio-legal analysis of the legitimacy of Highest Courts Fred Bruinsma; 5. From traditional judicial styles to verdict industries Inc. Rob Jagtenberg and Annie de Roo; 6. Courts in quest of legitimacy Marc Loth; 7. Another turn of the screw Elaine Mak; 8. Comparing judicial decisions on a formalism/policy axis Jacco Bomhoff; 9. Formal and substantial justification in legal decisions Harm Kloosterhuis; 10. In good faith, re-imagining comparative law discourse Bram Goetschalcx; 11. A comparison between wrongful discharge cases in the Netherlands and California Grace van Arkel; Part II. The Subtleties of the French, Belgian and Dutch Cassation Courts: 12. The formal and informal determining factors of the legitimacy of judicial decisions Guy Canivet; 13. 'But Pasteur was French' Koen Lemmens; 14. Filtering applications, number of judgments delivered and judicial discourse by Supreme Courts Andrea Pinna; 15. A commentary on Lasser's analysis from the Belgian Court of Cassation's perspective Luc Huybrechts; 16. Legitimacy and democracy through adjudication Maurice Adams and Fernand Tanghe; 17. Judicial reasoning and legitimacy of the Dutch Supreme Court Willibrord Davids; 18. The legitimacy of the decisions of the Dutch Supreme Court in criminal cases Geert Corstens; 19. From the view point of an annotator Paul Mevis; 20. From the viewpoint of an attorney Rob Baumgardt; 21. Legitimacy of the ruling: a formal approach Carel Smith; 22. The Dutch Supreme Courts versus the lower courts: summary dismissal and the catalogue of viewpoints Kees Loonstra and Jacco Quist; Part III. Supreme but Poor: The ECtHR: 23. Judicial deliberations: the Strasbourg perspective Lech Garlicki; 24. Judicial legitimacy in an internationalized world Wilhelmina Thomassen; 25. Judicial deliberations in the ECtHR Janneke Gerards; 26. Procedural aspects of ECtHR legitimacy Michiel van Emmerik and Tom Barkhuijsen; 27. Judicial deliberations and human rights adjudication Roel de Lange; 28. Functions of judicial opinion; a view from a post-communist state Sinisa Rodin.