Translated and reviewed by Matheus Lucas Hebling
September 9, 2025
The study “An Institutional Fail-Safe? How the Gap in Judicial Independence Between High and Low Courts Explains the Reversal of Corruption Convictions of Former Heads of Government,” by Luciano Da Ros (Federal University of Santa Catarina, UFSC) and Manoel Gehrke (University of Pisa), investigates the conditions under which former heads of government have their corruption convictions overturned by the judiciary.
Drawing on an analysis of 148 criminal convictions from countries on every continent between 1946 and 2022, the authors seek to understand the role of supreme courts in reversal decisions, particularly in contexts where high courts display different levels of independence relative to the trial courts below them.
The study uses the Heads of Government Convicted of Crimes (HGCC) database, which compiles criminal convictions of former presidents, former prime ministers, and former dictators handed down by domestic civilian courts. Cases tried by international, military, or foreign courts were not included.
Of the 148 cases mapped, 53 (36%) had their decisions reversed. Most of these reversals came about through judicial decisions, and they were more frequent in corruption cases than in other types of crime, such as human rights violations or political violence.
The article’s central hypothesis holds that reversals are more likely when supreme courts are less independent than the lower courts that issued the original convictions. This gap between levels of judicial independence is treated as a possible “institutional fail-safe” for political elites. The data show that the effect is statistically significant only in corruption cases, and not in convictions for other types of crime.
According to the authors, this is because high courts, when less independent, would be more prone to act accommodatingly in the face of political interests.
The findings indicate that the impact of this gap in judicial independence is most pronounced in three specific situations: in democratic regimes, in countries with proportional electoral systems, and in contexts of turnover in the executive and legislative branches. The study also observes that there is no significant association between the reversal of convictions and the ideological orientation of the convicted leaders, suggesting that the phenomenon has more to do with institutional dynamics than with partisan disputes.
In examining the influence of asymmetry in judicial independence on the reversal of corruption convictions, the article contributes to the debate on the limits of criminal accountability for political elites. The findings show that, under certain institutional and political conditions, the judicial system itself may work to reverse anticorruption efforts, particularly through the decisions of high courts.
In summary
- The article examined reversals of corruption convictions of former heads of government between 1946 and 2022.
- It analyzed 148 criminal convictions handed down by domestic civilian courts.
- Roughly 36% of the convictions were later overturned.
- Reversals were more frequent in corruption cases than in other crimes.
- The study links these reversals to the gap in independence between lower courts and supreme courts.
- It concludes that reversals are more likely when supreme courts are less independent than lower courts.
- This pattern is strongest in democracies, proportional systems, and following electoral turnovers.
- The political ideology of those convicted does not significantly affect the likelihood of reversal.
About the authors
Luciano Da Ros is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Political Science at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, UFSC). He holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Illinois at Chicago, a master’s degree in Political Science from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), and a bachelor’s degree in Legal and Social Sciences from UFRGS.
Manoel Gehrke is a researcher at the University of Pisa and a member of the European project “Bridging the Gaps in Evidence, Regulation, and Impact of Anticorruption Policies” (BridgeGap). He holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), a master’s degree in Economics from Bocconi University, and a master’s degree in International Relations with a concentration in the Political Economy of Development from the Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals (IBEI).
Publication details
Title: “An Institutional Fail-Safe? How the Gap in Judicial Independence Between High and Low Courts Explains the Reversal of Corruption Convictions of Former Heads of Government”
Authors: Luciano Da Ros and Manoel Gehrke
Year of publication: 2025
Available in: Public Integrity
Keywords: corruption convictions, judicial independence, supreme courts, heads of government, criminal accountability, anticorruption, conviction reversal, comparative judicial politics, political elites, rule of law, high courts and low courts, HGCC database, electoral turnover, proportional representation, judicial politics
