United Kingdom, United Courts? Hierarchical Interactions and Attention to Precedent in the British Judiciary

Published date01 September 2020
Date01 September 2020
DOI10.1177/1065912919853368
Subject MatterArticles
https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912919853368
Political Research Quarterly
2020, Vol. 73(3) 714 –726
© 2019 University of Utah
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DOI: 10.1177/1065912919853368
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Article
Contemporary political scholarship is increasingly atten-
tive to the policy impact of legal institutions. A particular
focus within the study of law and courts is the extent to
which the lower courts within a national judiciary follow
the precedents of their court of last resort. Such examina-
tions are informative given the import of stare decisis in
legitimizing the authority of a newly announced legal
rule by the court of last resort. An extensive literature
engages the frequency with which the lower courts rely
on the precedents of the U.S. Supreme Court (Benesh
2002; Hansford and Spriggs 2006). Other related studies
investigate the extent to which lower court decision mak-
ers follow or shirk from the precedents of the U.S.
Supreme Court (Benesh and Martinek 2002; Bowie,
Songer, and Szmer 2014; Corley 2009; Westerland et al.
2010). Despite significant advances in our understanding
of the mechanisms that influence how inferior court
judges respond to the precedents of the U.S. Supreme
Court, other judiciaries lack such a focus. Regrettably,
little is known of the extent to which lower court judges
in comparative legal environments adhere to the prece-
dents of their court of last resort (but see Bhattacharya
and Smyth 2001; Smyth 1999). We address this short-
coming by offering the first systematic assessment of
hierarchical interactions within the judiciary of the United
Kingdom.
A key assumption within the judicial impact literature
is that Supreme Court justices, particularly in the United
States, are policy-driven individuals who are interested in
the broader impact of their precedents (Baum 2006; Zorn
and Bowie 2010). A derivative assumption of these stud-
ies is that policy-seeking justices pay particular attention
to the impact of their decisions within inferior courts
(Lindquist and Klein 2006; Masood et al. 2017). We
believe that justices on the House of Lords,1 like their
counterparts in the United States, were interested in the
impact of their decisions within the judicial hierarchy.
Stated differently, our intuition is that policy-oriented jus-
tices on the House of Lords had an interest in having their
precedents frequently applied within lower court deci-
sions. As justices on the United Kingdom’s House of
853368PRQXXX10.1177/1065912919853368Political Research QuarterlyMasood and Lineberger
research-article2019
1Rhodes College, Memphis, TN, USA
2University of Wisconsin–Whitewater, USA
Corresponding Author:
Ali S. Masood, Department of Political Science, Rhodes College,
2000 North Parkway, Memphis, TN 38112, USA.
Email: masooda@rhodes.edu
United Kingdom, United Courts?
Hierarchical Interactions and
Attention to Precedent in the
British Judiciary
Ali S. Masood1 and Monica E. Lineberger2
Abstract
Most empirical examinations of hierarchical interactions among the courts are limited to a single judiciary, the
American courts. A significant puzzle that remains is the extent to which lower courts in comparative environments
follow the legal pronouncements of their court of last resort. We confront this shortcoming by examining lower court
adherence to the precedents of the House of Lords in the United Kingdom. As the Law Lords in the United Kingdom
primarily oversee a single lower court, the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, this design provides a unique
opportunity to assess the factors that influence hierarchical responses to precedent. We offer a framework in which
legal, rather than strategic, factors influence the propensity with which lower court judges rely on the precedents of
the House of Lords. Using an original data set of over 13,000 lower court responses to the precedents of the House
of Lords between 1970 and 2002, our findings challenge the efficacy of principal–agent accounts and shed new light on
how horizontal stare decisis influences decision-making behavior within the United Kingdom.
Keywords
comparative courts, Court of Appeal, House of Lords, Supreme Court, judicial hierarchy, stare decisis

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