This paper seeks to explain how courts in new and vulnerable democracies acquire legitimacy and thus become credible actors able to facilitate or even foster the consolidation of democracy. It analyses the case of the Constitutional Court of Benin (CCB), demonstrating that governmental...

This paper assesses the extent to which elected power holders informally intervene in the judiciaries of new democracies, an acknowledged but under-researched topic in studies of judicial politics. The paper first develops an empirical strategy for the study of informal interference based on...

The 2004 Constitution of Afghanistan vaguely describes the powers of the Supreme Court (the Court) to interpret the constitution and exercise judicial review. It also describes an independent commission for the supervision of the implementation of the constitution (the Commission), whose powers...