The Relationship between Role Conception, Judicial Behaviour and Perceived Procedural Justice: Some Explorative Remarks in the Context of Dutch Post-Defence Hearings

Abstract

This paper presents the results of eight case studies of post-defence hearings in a Dutch court, in which the judge was questioned about his role conception, judicial behaviour at the hearing was observed and parties were interviewed about their perception of procedural justice after the hearing. A large part of the findings are in line with former research on procedural justice. Nevertheless, self-generated answers by the respondents revealed interesting miscellaneous findings. The main aim of this paper is to shed light on the complexity of interactions in post-defence hearings. Furthermore, we will attempt to offer researchers in the field of procedural justice inspiration to examine some of our findings in future research by accurately describing the methods used. Our study brings original perspectives for understanding the content and importance of procedural justice judgments.