The Role of Judicial Ideology in a Legal System

The article addresses two research questions. First, what is a judicial ideology? Second, what is the role of judicial ideology in a legal system, concretely in the process of judicial decision-making? The discussion is broken down into two parts. Initially, it defines judicial ideology by delineating it from a general notion of ideology and consequently by differentiating it from judicial philosophy. It is argued that judicial ideology should be better understood in multidimensional rather than binary terms. This enables us, in the second part, to hypothesise about the potential role of judicial ideology in the process of judicial decision-making. It is argued that concerning this question three conceptions of the role of judicial ideology in law exist and that, if opting for a discursive conception, the relevance of judicial ideology in the practice of courts can be quite meaningful.

Keywords: judicial ideology, judicial philosophy, multidimensional ideology, conceptions of law, judicial decision-making.