Do High Courts Change Their Communication when Facing Populist Parties?
Abstract
Populist parties are on the rise in many countries and their participation in government poses a challenge to high courts. In this paper I study whether the Austrian Constitutional Court uses press releases and public hear ings more often when facing a populist legislator in a judicial review process. Both, public hearings and press releases, increase the likelihood that a decision is covered in the media. This is of particular importance when facing a populist legislator to make sure that the public does not only hear the populist’s side of the story, but also the court’s. The results show that facing a populist legislator increases the court’s likelihood to hold public hearings, but not to issue press releases. This is in line with research that has shown that public hearings have a larger impact on court coverage in the media.
