Replication Data for: The Politics of Judicial Procedures: The Role of Public Oral Hearings in the German Constitutional Court

Modern liberal democracies typically depend on courts with the power of constitutional review to ensure that elected officials do not breach their constitutional obligations. The efficacy of this review, however, depends critically on the public's ability to observe such breaches. One resource available to many of the world's constitutional courts to influence this ability is public oral hearings. Drawing on the comparative judicial literature on separation of powers, public awareness, and noncompliance, I develop a formal model of public oral hearings. The model provides empirical implications for when a court will hold public hearings and how hearings correspond to a court's willingness to rule against elected officials. An empirical analysis of hearings at the German Constitutional Court supports the model's prediction that courts use hearings as a resource to address potential noncompliance.