Policy Analysis & Briefs
Research & Policy Analysis
Evidence-led analysis at the intersection of jurisprudence and behavioral science. Policy briefs, research notes, and institutional reports designed for courts, policymakers, and governance professionals.
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All Research & Analysis
6 results
Moral Disengagement and Institutional Ethics: Why Integrity Systems Fail Cognitively
Quick Answer: Moral disengagement explains why institutional actors can know ethical rules yet rationalise violations at the moment of conduct. Current integrity systems focus on codes, training, committees, and sanctions, but rarely target the cognitive mechanisms that suspend self-regulation. That design gap leaves judicial and institutional ethics systems structurally exposed. Abstract Institutional ethics systems — […]
The Confidence-Accuracy Dissociation in Eyewitness Evidence: Why Courts Still Trust Confident Witnesses
Eyewitness confidence and identification accuracy are independent variables, yet no jurisdiction mandates a jury instruction targeting this cognitive dissociation. This analysis maps the science and the procedural gap across four jurisdictions.
Confirmation Bias on the Bench: Why Judicial Debiasing Without Psychometric Baseline Assessment Is Institutional Guesswork
No judicial training institution uses validated psychometric baseline assessment before designing debiasing programmes. The J-HAQ changes the measurement landscape — but the normative mandate for its use does not yet exist
Partisan Motivated Reasoning and the Limits of Judicial Legitimacy Reform
Partisan motivated reasoning — not procedural failure — is the primary obstacle to judicial legitimacy reform. Evidence from 2023–2026 across democratic jurisdictions shows that partisan identity intercepts procedural quality signals before they reach public trust formation.
When Lay Certainty Overrides Judicial Doubt: The Structural Failure of Mixed Court Deliberation
Abstract Mixed courts — panels combining professional judges with lay assessors — are a constitutional fixture across Nordic, Germanic, and civil-law jurisdictions. The institutional justification is democratic legitimacy: citizens participate in adjudication as a check on professional insularity. But ethnographic research from Swedish courts, published in late 2024, documents a failure mode that no judicial […]