Legislative regulations of the ottoman empire in the nineteenth century: A logistic regression analysis of judgement bias in the commercial courts and the courts

Abstract

In parallel with developments in trade in the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire, economic and commercial disputes arose between Muslims, non-Muslims and foreigners. Such a circumstance necessitated the establishment of specific legal regulations. In addition to the legislative movements initiated within this framework, new commercial and nizamiye courts were established to enforce the relevant laws. The structure of these newly established courts, composed of Muslim and non-Muslim members, brings to the fore the possibility of bias in the decision-making stages of the cases based on the religious identity of the plaintiffs and defendants. From this point of view, this study examines the factors that play a role in the victory of Muslims and non-Muslims, which have been evaluated from different perspectives in the literature, using the logistic regression method via the data set based on the information provided by the court records obtained through Ceride-i Mehakim. The results show that the probability of Muslims winning decreases when the plaintiff is a non-Muslim, while the likelihood of non-Muslims winning increases; in the case where the defendant is a Muslim, the opposite results are obtained.