Inter- and supranational courts derive their legitimacy partly from an
institutional comparison: judges' legal expertise and the quality of
judicial procedures justify a court's claim to authority towards other
branches of government and other courts with overlapping jurisdiction.
To provide a benchmark for assessing judicial outcomes that is
compatible with democratic commitments, Johann Laux suggests a new
normative category, Public Epistemic Authority (PEA). It builds on the
mechanisms behind theories of collective intelligence and empirical
research on judicial decision-making. PEA tracks judges' collective
ability to reliably identify breaches of law. It focuses on cognitive
tasks in adjudication. The author applies PEA to the Court of Justice of
the European Union and offers suggestions for improving its
institutional design.