“This study identifies possible factors that influence the decision-making process of Supreme Court judges in the Philippines. In particular, it examines the effect of litigant wealth on the success of an appeal. It incorporates two sets of cross-sectional data on 350 public and private law cases reviewed in 2008 into a logistic probability model.
The study finds that the ability of a litigant to harness resources does not significantly affect litigation outcomes. The result contradicts previous research showing that Filipino judges favour litigants with less resources in appellate courts. It also shows a tendency for judges to make decisions based solely on the legal merit of individual cases, contrary to public perception.
The study is particularly timely with the calls for a more politically independent and transparent selection process for Philippine Supreme Court judges. It implies that the composition of justices with regards to their personal background and political affiliation has no bearing on their rulings.
Additionally, the study uses an original data set which involves creative proxies for wealth and repeat player status. There persists in the Philippines a belief that justice serves only those who can afford it. This paper seeks to discover whether judges are indeed influenced by the comparative wealth and power of litigants rather than a strict adherence to the law.
In most legal systems, parties with more resources are more likely to win cases. However, a study conducted in the Philippines shows that the Supreme Court systematically favoured the poor during the Marcos era (Haynie 1995). The question is, does the socio-economic status of litigants affect judges' decision to award an appeal? If this is the case, for what reasons?
Over the past thirty years, academics have used the party capability theory— 'haves' are usually repeat players who have greater bargaining credibility—to prove that judges are predisposed to be swayed by the ability of litigants to harness resources.
Surveys in AngloAmerican countries show that the probability of success in appellate courts increases as litigant resource level increases, while the converse holds true for developing countries (Galanter 1974; McCormick 1993; Haynie et al. 2001). They imply that courts will rule in favour of parties with more wealth and experience upon reaching a certain level of development.
Haynie's analysis of intranational variation, which finds that provincial underdogs are more likely to win during political crises (1995), claims that this trend occurs because judges no longer feel a need to prove their legitimacy.
This study allows a distinction between resource level and repeat player status. It postulates that wealth and legal experience are not mutually exclusive, thus have separate effects on litigation outcomes. It also suggests that judges are active participants who are motivated by personal and economic considerations. They may choose to award an appeal to a litigant for non-meritorious reasons.
Previous empirical research assumes that the role of judges is spectatorial and passive. This paper differentiates itself from Haynie's investigation on resource inequality in the Supreme Court by expanding the sample to Page 1 of 10 include public and private law cases. It does not restrict itself to cases with non-economic contexts, nor does it disregard cases where an individual is not a petitioner or respondent.
In this aspect, this study comprehensively captures the possible effects of party capability on judicial decision-making in the year 2008. The outcome of this empirical investigation allows people to predict outcomes of public and private law cases better, effectively reducing the occurrence of asymmetric information problems, such as lawyers pushing clients to file cases they can never win.
Potential litigants will find it easier to evaluate risks of participating in both lower and higher courts given the greater understanding of the trends in Supreme Court decisions.
This paper is composed of three parts: Section I reviews existing scholarship on trends in judicial decisions and courts, Section II provides a theoretical and empirical framework for the working model and analyses preliminary econometric results, and Section III discusses the outcome in relation to earlier comparative studies.”
