Informal Interferences in the Judiciary in Six New Democracies

The main dataset consists of interview data from a total of 117 semi-structured interviews, 45 of these were conducted with current or former supreme court or constitutional court judges. Further interviewees included representatives of the institutions that appoint the judges of the highest courts (presidency, congress, judicial councils, supreme courts) as well as judges of lower courts, lawyers, academics, journalists, NGO representatives, and development advisors. The main focus of the questionnaire was to gather information on different mechanisms of political interferences in the judiciary. Based on these information from the interviews we constructed a specific dataset that describes the perceived level of informal interferences in each country according to six different modes.