Public Reactions to Noncompliance with Judicial Orders

Constitutions empower people to ask judges for binding orders directing state agents to remedy rights violations, but state agents do not always comply. Scholars propose that by making it easier to observe noncompliance, courts can leverage public pressure for compliance when it exists. Yet, exposur...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The American political science review 2022-02, Vol.116 (1), p.265-282
Main Authors: CARLIN, RYAN E., CASTRELLÓN, MARIANA, GAURI, VARUN, JARAMILLO SIERRA, ISABEL C., STATON, JEFFREY K.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cognitive psychology
Compliance
Constitutional law
Constitutions
Courts
Design
Directing
Experiments
Focus Groups
Internet
Judges & magistrates
Judiciary
Justice
Noncompliance
Political science
Public officials
Public Opinion
Public opinion surveys
Research Design
Resource Materials
Social Change
State Officials
Tracking
Violations
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Summary:Constitutions empower people to ask judges for binding orders directing state agents to remedy rights violations, but state agents do not always comply. Scholars propose that by making it easier to observe noncompliance, courts can leverage public pressure for compliance when it exists. Yet, exposure to information about noncompliance might lead individuals to accept high levels of noncompliance and reduce support for judicial remedies. We estimate the rate of noncompliance with judges’ orders via a rigorous tracking study of the Colombian tutela. We then embed this rate in three survey experiments fielded with online national quota samples. We show that people find the noncompliance rate in the tutela highly unacceptable regardless of a variety of mitigating factors. We also show that public reactions to this information depend on prior expectations, a finding that stresses the importance of scholarship in cognitive psychology for studies of compliance in law and politics.
ISSN:0003-0554
1537-5943
DOI:10.1017/S0003055421000903