The Quality Of Judicial Decisions In Supreme Courts: A Conceptual Definition And Index Applied To Eleven Latin American Countries

This article is the first attempt to evaluate the quality of judicial decisions of 152 Supreme Court Justices from eleven Latin American countries. Taking the essential ideas of legal argumentation theory, I define a high-quality judicial decision as one in which the judge applies the norm, interprets it in light of the case at hand, and justifies her decision with recourse to jurisprudential precedents and legal doctrine. Through expert surveys in eleven Latin American countries, the article indicates the judicial decisions of highest quality are found in judges from Costa Rica and Colombia, while those most deficient are cast by judges of Ecuador, Uruguay, and Bolivia.