Winning and Losing in Constitutional Review: Studying the Determinants of Litigants' Success in the Uruguayan Supreme Court (1989-2021)

The literature on judicial politics posits that powerful litigants, the "haves", tend to prevail in court. Nevertheless, the evidence regarding litigants' success remains inconclusive and is limited to a few advanced democracies and some in Latin America. This article tests the generalizability of extant arguments within the unexplored context of the Uruguayan Supreme Court of Justice (SCJ). Using an original database of the SCJ's decisions on the constitutionality of laws issued between 1989 and 2021, we explore the applicability of party capability theory and its extensions. The findings of this study indicate that the advantage held by those with greater resources is conditional on the issue at stake and is mostly limited to economic issues. These findings offer a nuanced understanding of party capability theory and extend its study to a previously unexplored case in the Global South.