Employees as judges in European labour courts: A conflict of interests?

Abstract

Labour courts in many European countries have a tripartite structure, with a professional judge sitting with employer and employee lay judges. This article focuses on employee judges, who face a potential conflict between their partisan role defending workers and their role as an impartial judge. Using cognitive dissonance as our theoretical framework and drawing on over a 100 interviews in three European countries, we found that many British and German interviewees said that they had not experienced any conflict of interests. Others, however, reported such conflict, especially initially, and demonstrated adaptation strategies that appeared consistent with cognitive dissonance theory. Moreover, there were national variations: conflict in France appeared more pervasive and enduring than in Britain or Germany.