Courts and judges in authoritarian regimes

The establishment of constitutional review in transitional and nondemocratic regimes has drawn attention to courts in nondemocratic states. Typically, authoritarian leaders treat law and courts in an instrumental fashion and try to keep judges dependent and responsive to their desires. The three books under review reveal the sophisticated ways that this is achieved, including the development of judicial bureaucracies and the cultivation of apolitical judges, and how the empowerment of judges tends to produce power that is contingent and easily withdrawn. The leaders of established authoritarian regimes do empower judges, if only to gain legitimacy for the regime and keep its officials accountable, but sometimes at a cost to judicial independence. The mixture of independence, power, and accountability of judges in authoritarian states differs from what is found in democratic ones, and informal practices often determine the meaning of judicial power. These patterns have serious consequences for legal transition.