The Role of Judicial Associations within the Rule of Law

What do judicial associations actually do? The recent scholarship on democratic backsliding identifies judicial associations as a potential defender of judicial independence. But is that really their role in practice?

In a new NET-ROL working paper, we analysed judicial associations across 34 European countries and constructed the Index of Judicial Association Activity, a new tool that captures how active judicial associations are in two key dimensions:

- participation in judicial governance and regulation
- support for judges and resistance to pressure on judicial independence

The results reveal striking variation. Some associations act as comprehensive actors engaged in both governance and judicial protection. Others focus primarily on supporting judges, on governance, or remain largely passive

To understand why these differences emerge, we complemented the European mapping with elite interviews with judges from Poland and Hungary. The comparison suggests that institutional design alone is not enough to explain judicial associations' behaviour. Judicial culture, professional identity, and shared beliefs about the proper role of judges strongly shape whether associations remain restrained or become active defenders of the rule of law.

The paper introduces: the Index of Judicial Association Activity, the first systematic mapping of judicial associations across Europe, an in-depth comparison of Poland and Hungary as contrasting models of judicial mobilisation.