Case Complexity and Citation to Judicial Authority - Some Empirical Evidence from the New Zealand Court of Appeal
AbstractThis paper empirically tests one aspect of the role of courts as organizations; namely, how courts communicate legitimacy and the influence of complexity on the extent to which the courts attempt to establish legitimacy through the citation of precedent. This is an application of Feldman and March's argument about the symbolic and signaling functions of information in organizations. The results differ from previous studies and the author suggests this may be due in part to a shift in focus of courts to more explicit policy arguments. In focusing on the policy implications of their decisions, they may be signaling a different type of information than in the past. |