Judicial specialisation: a magic wand for achieving higher-quality and more efficient court decisions? The experience of the Estonian court system

This article examines whether, and to what extent, judicial specialisation has developed within the Estonian court system. As the legal order continues to evolve under the increasing influence of international and European Union law, and as jurisprudence and legal theory become more complex, individual branches of law are becoming increasingly domain-specific. Judicial specialisation responds to the practical difficulty of expecting judges to have equally extensive expertise in different fields of law, particularly when adjudication requires substantial in-depth understanding of other areas of life. Its principal advantage is that cases can be decided by judges possessing advanced knowledge and experience in the relevant field of law. In light of these considerations, the need for judicial specialisation has attracted increasing attention in both academic literature and at the level of judicial administration.