Legitimacy, Independence and Impartiality: How do Serbian and Croatian Legal Professionals Assess Their Judiciaries?

Abstract

Drawing on a 2018 survey on a convenience sample of 716 Serbian and 393 Croatian legal professionals, we assess their attitudes towards Serbian and Croatian judiciaries against their key dimensions: independence, efficiency, quality, and fairness and impartiality. Legal professionals in both countries have little confidence in their judiciary, which we take as a proxy for legitimacy. Hence, both judiciaries are faced with an internal crisis of legitimacy. Respondents also scored judiciaries low on each of the key dimensions, while regression analysis confirmed that these attitudes are strong predictors of legitimacy. The results indicate that apparent differences in historical trajectories have not undermined common post-transitional political struggles over the role of judiciaries.