The baremization of justice: an approach through the economic analysis of law.

Summary This research was conducted by a team federating the skills of economists, jurists and legal practitioners, in response to a call for projects launched in early 2016 by the Mission Recherche Droit et Justice. Supported by two economics laboratories (BETA and CRED), this research focuses on the capacity of a scale to treat equally litigants placed in similar conditions. This question is treated according to three complementary approaches. The first proposes a prospective analysis of the scale, based on a review of the legal economics literature on scales. This literature, which is essentially empirical and focuses on the American case, is rather critical of the ability of scales to achieve their objectives. They would not automatically guarantee greater horizontal equity . they would not necessarily encourage agreements between the parties . they would not guarantee greater severity of sanctions. One of the reasons given is that, when faced with scales, actors, and judges in particular, may develop different attitudes. The second part proposes an empirical analysis ex ante of the introduction of a scale, taking the case of industrial tribunal compensation and using judgments from the Paris Industrial Tribunal prior to the introduction of the mandatory scale in 2017. This descriptive statistical work shows that the amounts obtained are mainly correlated to the section, age and presence of a lawyer (but not to gender). It also examines the effects of a "dummy" application of the 2017 scale. The third part proposes an empirical ex-post analysis of the introduction of a scale, taking the case of the contribution to the maintenance and education of children (CEEE), the determination of which has been governed since the 2010 circular by an indicative scale. Based on the use of six different sources (experimental survey, qualitative survey of judges and four databases of court decisions before and after the scale) and using different econometric methodologies, this section shows that the effect of the scale on the amount of child support and education is not as great as it might seem, This section shows that the homogenization effect attributed to the use of the scale is fairly systematically associated with cases characterized by a pair of divergent parental proposals in terms of CEEE, by a pair of unequal parental incomes in favor of the mother, by a pair of close parental incomes at an intermediate level, or by a pair of consensual and weak parental proposals. On the other hand, the scale would appear to promote disparate outcomes in cases characterized by a zero CSEA offer or in cases characterized by an unequal income couple in favor of the father.