To raise or not to raise : this is the question of judicial compensation

Abstract

The issue of raising judicial compensation as a cornerstone for improving (or at least maintaining) the quality of the judiciary has been the subject of a longstanding debate engaging judges, politicians and scholars. Some argue strongly for raising compensations in order to attract highly qualified people to the bench while others argue that higher compensations are not a major concern for the judiciary. A "natural experiment" design was used here to examine the effect on judges of a rather unique real-life case of a reduction in judicial compensation in Israel. A group of presiding judges who received reduced compensations served as a "study group" and was compared to a group of presiding judges whose compensations were not reduced, serving as a "control group". Thus, this paper analyzes empirically a unique actual case of a change in judicial compensations, using a "natural" experimental design lending validity to the results. The results indicate that the lowered compensations did not affect the courts' quality and were not a major consideration for judges and lawyers (potential candidates) in their decision to join the bench. The results shed important empirical light on the "raising or not raising of judicial compensation” debate.