The Politics of Judicial Decision-Making in the UK's Top Court: Lessons from the Pinochet Case

Abstract

This post examines the judicial behaviour of the UK’s top court, specifically, how the judges who hear a case affect the outcome. It utilises the author’s research on the behind-the-scenes proceedings in the Pinochet case (1998-99) to address this question. Drawing largely on the author’s interviews with the Law Lords, carried out during and shortly after the case, it stresses the role of the judges’ personal values, ideologies and emotions, the culture and supervision of the court, and the interplay between law and politics in shaping the outcome of cases. It is argued that these findings have significant consequences for the ways in which we think about judicial authority, independence, bias, and accountability – that is, of what judges and courts should and can be. The post concludes that it is pertinent to ask whether the UK’s Supreme Court (which succeeded the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords as the UK’s final court of appeal) has responded sufficiently to the problems that arose in the Pinochet case? 

Keywords: crimes against humanity, universal jurisdiction, impunity, judicial impartiality, law and politics, Pinochet, Amnesty International, judges, courts, judicial independence, constitutional law, international law, human rights, legal history, socio-legal studies, law and society, international human rights law, public international law, justice, transitional justice, international criminal law, the UK Supreme Court, the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords, public law, judicial bias, Lord Hoffmann, the Law Lords