Lorsque le juge est une femme : une réflexion sur Ĺinfluence du sexe des juges sur le jugement à travers le cas de la succession des femmes au Burundi

In: African sociological review: bi-annual publication of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) = Revue africaine de sociologie, Band 26, Heft 1

Abstract

The feminization of the judiciary has aroused various reactions, both from researchers and actors. The former wondered about the influence of the sex of the judges on the way of judging, while the latter worried about a probable bias of female judges regarding the interests of women, especially for family cases opposing men and women. Based on the case of succession in Burundi where cases opposing women to their brothers are submitted to the courts, this article attempts to answer the question of the influence of the gender of judges on the judgment. The data on which the analysis is based consist of 16 interviews with judges and 214 judgements. They were collected during doctoral research between 2018 and 2020 in two Residence Courts in Burundi, namely Mutambu located in rural areas and Kamenge located in urban areas of Bujumbura. The qualitative analysis of the data shows that apart from a few aspects, there is no significant difference between the way of judging male and female judges.