General Courts, Specialized Courts, and the Complementarity Effect
REGULATION & GOVERNANCE, 2023 Forthcoming
Hebrew University of Jerusalem Legal Research Paper No. 22-10
38 Pages Posted: 11 Jun 2022 Last revised: 29 Sep 2022
Date Written: June 8, 2022
Abstract
Among the major decisions any legal system must make is deciding whether to establish general courts with broad jurisdiction, or specialized courts with limited jurisdiction. Under one influential argument – advanced by both judges and legal theorists – general courts foster coherence within the legal system. This Article identifies a distinct effect of establishing general courts: “the complementarity effect.” In the case of complementarity, general courts strategically apply different principles in different fields, such that litigants losing in one sphere (e.g., public law) are compensated in another (e.g., private law). We support this conjecture by analyzing three case studies.
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