Introduction This Overview has two primary purposes. First, it provides judicial system officials with the arguments in favor of and in opposition to the creation of specialized courts. Second, it offers recommendations for consideration by judicial system officials when they are deliberating whether to establish specialized courts. This Overview also provides a review of types of specialized c...

The United States Sentencing Commission was created to develop federal sentencing guidelines, which restrict judicial discretion and were found to increase the average sentence length while leaving unchanged the likelihood of resolution through plea bargaining. A game theoretic model is developed in which a sentencing commission may impose guidelines or defer to judicial discretion; then a defe...

An Alberta court ruling and new guidelines for physicians issued by the Quebec medical college are giving chronic fatigue syndrome a legitimacy it never before enjoyed. What will this mean for physicians?

The organized bar has a long history of promoting an independent and accountable judiciary. Lawyers and judges have led efforts to improve judicial selection methods, establish codes of conduct and ethics, and promote public trust and confidence in the judiciary. Judicial independence is threatened by increasingly expensive and partisan judicial elections in the states and legislative attempts ...

This paper analyzes the relation between the quality of the legal enforcement of loan contracts and the allocation of credit to households, both theoretically and empirically. We use a model of household credit market with secured debt contracts, where the judicial system affects the cost incurred by banks to actually repossess the collateral. The model shows that the working of the judicial sy...

e-Justice has been under discussion at European level since 2007. The article describes some tools and displays objective criteria for evaluating the WEB-pages of judicial institutions in Bulgaria. А methodology is offered in order to improve the organization and functioning of the judicial institutions. It is used to conduct experimental tests for analysis and assessment of the main characteri...

This chapter reviews measurement technologies that have rapidly invigorated the study of judicial behavior, examining the standard approach to measuring judicial “ideal points” and discussing how such measures have facilitated broad new lines of inquiry in understanding judicial decision-making. But the measures, as this chapter explains, are no panacea. Proper use and interpretation depend cri...

This Article discusses the concept of judicial independence, the political nature of the courts, and efforts to insulate the courts from the ordinary politics engulfing the popularly elected branches. It reviews Florida’s political history and changing political landscape. It traces the development of the state’s judicial selection processes and ties them to current legislation being considered...