Informal networks and judicial decisions: Insights from the Supreme Court of the Philippines, 1986–2015
| Author | Björn Dressel,Tomoo Inoue |
| Published date | 01 November 2018 |
| Date | 01 November 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0192512118795314 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0192512118795314
International Political Science Review
2018, Vol. 39(5) 616 –633
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/0192512118795314
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Informal networks and judicial
decisions: Insights from the
Supreme Court of the
Philippines, 1986–2015
Björn Dressel
Australian National University, Australia
Tomoo Inoue
Seikei University, Japan
Abstract
To what extent do informal networks shape the decisions of the Supreme Court of the Philippines?
Though often raised in the Philippines, this question has never been studied empirically. To answer it, we
constructed a set of social network variables to assess how informal ties, based on university connections
and work affiliations, may have influenced the court’s decisions between 1986 and 2015 in 47 politically
high-profile cases. Providing statistically significant evidence for the effects of political influence (presidential
appointments) and hierarchical pressure (the vote of the Chief Justice) on related networks, our analysis
suggests a continuing tension on the Supreme Court bench between professionalism and informality.
Because the findings advance both theoretical and empirical understanding of larger issues at the intersection
of courts and society throughout the region, we recommend more attention to the role of judicial networks,
external to the courts as well as within them.
Keywords
Philippines, supreme court, judges, judicial networks, megapolitics
Introduction
Courts have become central players in Asia’s constitutional landscape. But despite growing aca-
demic attention, there is still considerable debate about their uneven track records and whether they
can be independent and neutral arbiters in political cases. Patterns of informality in Asian courts
Corresponding author:
Björn Dressel, Crawford School of Public Policy, ANU College of Asia & the Pacific, The Australian National University,
J.G. Crawford Building No. 132 Lennox Crossing, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 2601, Australia.
Email: Bjoern.Dressel@anu.edu.au
795314IPS0010.1177/0192512118795314International Political Science ReviewDressel and Inoue
research-article2018
Article
Dressel and Inoue 617
based on loyalty, friendship, and reciprocal obligation have been widely acknowledged, but how
they may affect judicial decisions has never been studied empirically. Scrutinizing one of the most
activist courts in the region, we therefore ask: To what extent do informal networks shape the deci-
sions of the Supreme Court of the Philippines?
To shed light on this issue, we examine the link between informal ties, inferred from university
studies, work affiliations, and seniority, and decisions in 47 political cases between 1986 and 2015.
We thus complement previous studies of the court’s decision-making with a relational perspective
taking into account informal influences on judicial behaviour.
As highlighted in the introduction to this special edition (see, Dressel et al., 2018) many theo-
retical models of judicial behaviour developed in the West (e.g., legal, attitudinal, and strategic–
rational) do not transfer easily to countries in the Global South or the post-communist world where
institutions are far from sturdy, ideological fault lines are fluid, and informal practices generate
uncertainty (Kapiszewski, 2012). In many non-Western societies, it has become clear that the
informal and the formal are closely interwoven in institutional activities, eliciting growing recogni-
tion that the study of formal institutional arrangements needs to be complemented by similar atten-
tion to informal arrangements (Helmke and Levitsky, 2004). This means studying the roles of
peers, ideological communities, party alignments, and ideational, identity-based, or clientelistic
networks – informal relational dimensions that may affect how judges behave (Ingram, 2012;
Llanos et al., 2014; Trochev and Ellett, 2014).
Informal dynamics in the Philippines are of particular interest. Equipped with far-reaching for-
mal review powers after democratic institutions were restored in 1986, the Supreme Court of the
Philippines is regularly called upon to resolve high-profile political cases (Pangalangan, 2014). Yet
the 2012 impeachment of its Chief Justice (CJ), Renato Corono, for abuse of power, as well as the
2018 removal of CJ Sereno via a quo warranto instigated with support of factions on the bench,
suggest that the court is still vulnerable to traditional personalized and patronage-based politics
(Agabin, 2012: 1–30; Bonoan and Dressel, 2018). Because they lack the predictability that might
be expected if the law were formally applied, the court’s decisions in cases with major policy or
political significance have raised speculation about how much informal influence is exerted on
justices (see Vitug, 2010, 2012). So far, however, neither quantitative nor qualitative studies have
produced a satisfactory answer.
Empirical studies of the Supreme Court of the Philippines have drawn attention to the socio-
biographical background of judges (Gatmaytan and Magno, 2011; Tate, 1970); tested for the
impact on their decisions of regime variables (Tate and Haynie, 1993) and resource inequalities
in litigation (Haynie, 1995); and provided measures of ideal judicial points (Pellegrina et al.,
2014). Other investigations have considered attitudinal and principal–agent-based models as
determinants of Philippine Supreme Court decisions (Desierto, 2015; Escresa and Garoupa, 2012,
2013). At this point, however, no analysis has explicitly considered informal factors in judicial
decision-making.
Qualitative studies, by contrast, have offered rich contextual narratives of the dynamics under-
pinning how the Supreme Court of the Philippines functions from political–institutional (Agabin,
2012), historical–legal (Cruz, 2000), and investigative (Vitug, 2010, 2012) perspectives. Most
explicitly acknowledge the importance of informal dynamics, such as presidential influence on
nominations; personal characteristics that shape judicial leadership; or patterns of obligation,
friendship, and loyalty among justices – all of which could influence decisions (Chua et al., 2012;
Gatmaytan, 2015: 35–37; Gatmaytan and Magno, 2011).
Although both the quantitative and qualitative perspectives have much to offer to the study of
the Supreme Court of the Philippines, because of their different disciplinary backgrounds, they
rarely engage with each other. However, some authors in the quantitative tradition have
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