Litigants’ characteristics and effects on judicial decision-making

Judges’ professional codes of ethics, and rules of natural justice and due process, are replete with expressions of how judges must treat all litigants impartially and decide cases free from prejudice and bias. Empirical studies regularly demonstrate differences and inconsistencies in judicial decision-making, apparently owing to particular characteristics of litigants, including gender, race or ethnicity or age. Troubling examples of judges’ sexist attitudes aside, researchers have conducted empirical studies evaluating how litigants’ gender correlates with particular trends in judicial decision-making. Aside from archival studies showing correlations between litigants’ gender and actual judicial outcomes, experimental studies have investigated the effect of gender on judicial decision-making using practising judges as participants. The researchers argued, therefore, that bail decisions presented a better opportunity to examine the true effect of ethnicity on judicial decisions.