How Do Judges' Personal Views Affect Asylum Rulings?

Courts are supposed to treat like cases alike. But research consistently finds that judges' backgrounds and beliefs can influence their decisions. Most research focuses on courts where individual votes are public, but what about in systems where only a collective judgment is published?

A new study uses innovative statistical analysis of Swiss court data to shed light on exactly this problem, with implications for how judicial institutions everywhere should be designed.

Joining host Alan Renwick are two of the study's authors, both from the UCL Department of Political Science: Ben Lauderdale, Professor of Political Science, and Judith Spirig, Associate Professor of Political Science.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Inferring Individual Preferences from Group Decisions: Judicial Preference Variation and Aggregation on Collegial Courts by Dominik Hangartner, Benjamin E. Lauderdale, and Judith Spirig.