The Drive for Judicial Supremacy

Abstract

Great efforts at judicial reform have been made in Central-Eastern European countries (CEE) over the last 20 years. The earliest reforms were driven by the domestic need for foreign investment and the security of contracts and private property rights which investors expect. These domestic motivations were later complemented by those of international organizations, which throughout the 1990s lent money and granted funding to CEE countries on condition that they establish inter alia the rule of law. Externally motivated influence over judicial reform reached its height under the EU accession process and its conditionality, whereunder candidates aspiring to EU membership must meet the conditions enshrined in the Council of Copenhagen’s Criteria of 1993.1 These also include the rule of law, which is generally supposed to rely on the independence of the judiciary.

I would like to thank my interviewees, each one of whom gave their precious time to answer my questions and to the British Academy who funded the Postdoctoral Fellowship without which this chapter might not have been written.