Project description

In our daily decision-making processes attitudes play an important role. An attitude is an evaluative judgement of a person, object or an issue on a scale of favorability. A large amount of research has been done on the role of attitudes in our daily decision-making processes. There is, however, an empirical knowledge gap when it concerns the role of attitudes in the professional judicial decision-making process. It has been accepted that the professional judicial decision-making process has an subjective element, but the subjective element remains unexplained. Attitudes are inherently personal and subjective, and they can make our decision-making process easier. They can, however, also be the basis for biases and prejudices. Here lies a potential risk, especially in the professional judicial decision-making process. If attitudes play a role in the decision-making process of judges there is a possibility that impartiality, one of the judiciary’s core professional values, might be difficult to obtain. To see if attitudes play a role in the professional judicial decision-making process semi-structured interviews will be conducted among judges, and judges will be asked to fill in a scenario survey. With the data obtained from this research first steps will be made hopefully to a start and fill this the empirical knowledge gap.

The project is carried out by Elke Olthuis (C-LAB, PPLE College, Paul Scholten Centre for Jurisprudence, Amsterdam Centre on the Legal Professions) and she is supervised by dr. Nienke Doornbos, prof. dr. mr. Jonathan Soeharno and prof. dr. Frenk van Harreveld.