Self-Restraint in Search of Legitimacy

The Reform of the Argentine Supreme Court

Bibliographic Data

ID3005652
AuthorsAlba Ruibal (0000-0002-8749-9881, Centro Científico Tecnológico - San Juan, corresponding author), Alba M Ruibal
Year2009
Volume51
Issue03
Pages59-86
Publication date2009-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLatin American Politics and Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1531-426X • E-ISSN: 1548-2456
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1111/j.1548-2456.2009.00056.x
OpenAlexW1975112828
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited24

In 2003, the Argentine executive promoted a process of Supreme Court reform that entailed limiting presidential attributions in the selection of justices. Then the renewed court implemented changes to its internal procedures that increased its own accountability mechanisms. The literature on the politics of institutional judicial independence in Latin America has developed two explanatory models: one presents reforms as an insurance policy, the other as a consequence of divided government. Both perspectives conceive of reforms as a result of political competition and as a way to limit other actors, the future government in the first case, the party in power in the second. This study, by contrast, explains the Argentine reforms as movements of strategic self-restriction, designed to build legitimacy and credibility, for the government and the court, respectively, in a context of social and institutional crisis and pressure from civil society

Judicial Independence · Legitimacy · Political science · Politics · Presidential system · Separation of powers · Supreme court · Comparative constitutional jurisprudence studies · Judicial and Constitutional Studies · Law · Politics and Society in Latin America · Public Administration

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