Silent Dissent: Judicial Abstention in Authoritarian Courts

• In Event: Judiciaries in Democracy and Autocracy

Abstract

What judges in authoritarian regimes can do to voice their dissent? Autocratic higher courts are often constrained by the regime, and judges do not have much leeway, especially in politically important cases. Prior research has focused on separate opinions as public disagreement with the majority opinion or the status quo. Yet, public dissents are not always tolerated by the state. In this paper I focus on a more subtle way of expressing disagreement by avoiding participating in the hearing altogether. Using original fine-grained dataset on all judgments issued by the Russian Constitutional Court (1992-2023) and individual voting and attendance patterns of judges, I explore when and which judges abstain from participating in a hearing. Preliminary results: (1) with time, the number of dissenting opinions decrease and the number of abstentions increase; (2) the result is driven by specific judges; (3) there are mot abstentions in politically sensitive cases, as compared to all others. These results suggest that, when a court is constrained in its decision-making and voicing a public dissent in costly, disagreeing judges would resort to avoiding the hearings on specific, overly-political issues.

Author

• Yulia Khalikova