Councils of the Judiciary and Judges’ Perceptions of Respect to Their Independence in Europe

Councils of the Judiciary have spread in Europe under the assumption that they contribute to a central aspect of the Rule of Law: the independence of courts and judges under their authority. However, a recent survey of the European Network of Councils of the Judiciary showed that, in some countries, there are significant groups of judges that perceive their Judicial Council as disrespectful of their autonomy. While in countries such as Denmark or Belgium judicial distrust of the Council seems to be anecdotal, in other countries such as Spain a striking 36 per cent of respondent judges had such negative views of the institution. With the aid of multi-value Qualitative Comparative Analysis, this paper explains the causes of this paradoxical phenomenon. It is argued that judges hold such negative opinions of Councils of the Judiciary as the result of the interaction between institutional, political and socio-legal conditions: the range of powers of the Councils, their control by political elites and interest groups, and the degree of judicial corruption.