Chris Hanretty, A Court of Specialists: Judicial Behavior on the UK Supreme Court, New York: Oxford University Press, 2020, 304 pp, hb £64.00

Abstract

Quantitative empirical research on judicial behaviour is not yet as developed in the United Kingdom as it is in some other jurisdictions. Perhaps, as Chris Hanretty suggests, this is partly because 'investigating the non‐legal factors that determine judges' decisions might … be taken as a rather bad‐mannered thing to do' (265) (although, as Hanretty himself shows, quantitative research may focus on legal factors as well). Another factor is the preference among legal academics for doctrinal or philosophical over empirical research methods; which doesn't explain the relative lack of interest among academics in other disciplines. Whatever the reasons, the result is that many interesting research questions that could be addressed through quantitative studies remain to be tackled. In his valuable and pioneering book, A Court of Specialists: Judicial Behavior on the UK Supreme Court, political scientist Hanretty sets out to answer some of those questions.