Trust between courts in a multilevel judicial system: Exploring the levels and drivers of trust between national courts, the CJEU and the ECtHR

While trust in political actors has captured the attention of political scientists since the mid-19th century, exploring trust in courts is of a much newer date. Literature focused predominantly on citizens’ trust in courts and justice systems. Recently, a research agenda emerged on trust between courts, particularly in the context of the European Union (EU) multilevel political system. Scholars looked at trust of national courts in the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the effect of trust on the development of a dialogue between the two levels, predominantly from the perspective of Article 267 TFEU preliminary ruling proceedings or the Protocol 16 to the European Convention on Human Rights. However, little is known about how trust differs across the levels of judicial hierarchy in a complex multilevel judicial system such as the EU. Building on the insights from trust literature and the model of reciprocal trust and based on empirical evidence from surveys and interviews conducted with Slovenia and Croatian judges, this paper explores the divergence and drivers of trust between courts. More specifically, it explores reciprocal trust between the first instance, the second instance, the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court judges in Slovenia and Croatia, as well as trust of national courts across all instances in the CJEU and the ECtHR.