This paper proposes an empirical strategy for the study of informal ways of political interference with the judiciary in new democracies, and illustrates it with preliminary evidence from two francophone African (Benin and Senegal) and two Latin American (Paraguay and Chile) countries. Theoretically, it builds on a line of research (Kapiszewski and Taylor 2008, among others) suggesting that a way to operationalize the complex concept of judicial independence is to think about potential empirical indicators of pressure by the elected branches. According to these works, the elected branches respond to certain rulings by the courts either with actions based on the legal provisions that regulate their relations with the judges, or they adopt extra-legal and retaliatory actions, which are also referred as informal ways of exercising pressure. We understand that a thorough view of political interferences with the judiciary in new democracies needs to combine these two perspectives. In this paper, we concentrate on the informal mechanisms of political pressure, which have been relatively less systematized for comparative purposes than formal factors. Drawing from the existing literature, we developed a questionnaire that was used to conduct semi-structured interviews in the aforementioned four new democracies between September and December 2012, including judicial experts (NGOs, journalists, academics), former and current constitutional judges, and politicians. This paper offers a first systematization of the ways of undue political inference that are being used in these countries according to our interviews, and proposes how these ideas could develop into a systematic framework of analysis for further comparative research.
