Dismissing appeals on formal grounds: The case of the Argentine Supreme Court

SERGIO MURO; ALEJANDRO CHEHTMAN; JORGE SILVA MÉNDEZ; NELSON AMAYA DURÁN

Latin American and Iberian Journal of Law and Economics

Berkeley Electronic Press

Año: 2016 vol. 2 p. 1 - 38

2519-1217

High courts typically struggle to find the right balance between its error correction function and its final interpretation of constitutional clauses. The more time and resources spent in error correction limits the greater is the ability to offer improvements in constitutional interpretation. Some courts seek to streamline the appeals? process by dismissing appeals which have not complied with certain formal requirements. Our study contributes to the growing comparative literature on High Court docket management by investigating the time to case disposition of appeals with formal errors in the Argentine Supreme Court. We show that this type of appeals? dismissal has not resulted in efficient case duration or in an increase of CSJN?s output. Furthermore, the multivariate analysis shows that several case characteristics, such as the appeals? subject matter or the type of formal error, affect appeal duration.