Ideology and Career Judges: Reviewing Labor Law in the Spanish Supreme Court

Conventional literature presents civil-law judiciaries as insulated from political preferences. We investigate labor law appeals in the Spanish Supreme Court for the period 2010–2020. Our findings show that ideology (proxied by conservative/progressive affiliation) is a good predictor of a pro-employee/pro-employer outcome. Specifically, the results detect a pattern of behavior by justice rapporteurs: conservative rapporteurs are more likely to be pro-employer while progressive rapporteurs are more likely to be pro-employee. These findings support previous empirical studies about decisions by the Spanish Supreme Court in other areas of law and challenge the conventional literature.