LEGAL REASONING AND JUDICIAL DECISION MAKING

Legality ◽  
2011 ◽  
pp. 234-258
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Legal Reasoning ◽  
Judicial Decision ◽  
Judicial Decision Making

Do Not Ignore the Elephant... Exploring the Role of Intuition and Experience in Judicial Decision-Making

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Tvrdíková
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Legal Reasoning ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Judicial Decision ◽  
Judicial Decision Making ◽  
Deliberative System ◽  
Experiential System ◽  
Analytical System

If we look at the literature about judicial decision-making and interpretation of law, we can find many texts which are dedicated to legal arguments, logic and legal reasoning – in those texts the rationality, analytical and logical thinking is glorified and an interpretation seems ‘just’ as a logical operation where judges subsume certain facts under general legal norm or norms, those norms are formulated linguistically, so it seems that the whole job of judges is to analyze texts. What we can see more rarely are discussions and texts exploring the role of intuitions, feelings and emotions and their role in judicial decision-making – at least in the Czech Republic. Those of our faculties are seen as the source of bias and distortion. Even if we look to the past, those themes are not so common among legal theorists and philosophers – especially in our tradition where we are still influenced by Hans Kelsen and František Weyr and their normative theory – but we can find exceptions and those are the American legal realists. In this paper, we will show that their observations and insights seem to be right. How can we know it? Because in last decades cognitive scientists have made big progress in the area of decision-making and it seems that we are not so rational as we thought us to be. They have explored that our thinking does not take place only through the deliberative system but, surprisingly, there is also another one system which influences our decisions. This system is automatic, fast, and intuitive – some call this system S1, Seymour Epstein an experiential system. This automatic system is more influential than our deliberative system because it is always heard – we can use Jonathan Haidt’s metaphor of an elephant and a rider. S1, the intuitive, experiential system, is an elephant and S2, the deliberative, analytical system is the rider – in legal theory, we have talked about the rider a lot but we do not explore the elephant sufficiently. This paper will try to uncover the nature of the elephant.

Cognition in the Courts

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eileen Braman
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Legal Reasoning ◽  
Motivated Reasoning ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Dual Process ◽  
Judicial Decision ◽  
Judicial Decision Making ◽  
Disciplinary Boundaries ◽  
Fact Finding

This chapter critically evaluates how experiments are used to study cognitive processes involved in legal reasoning. Looking at research on legal presumptions, heuristic processing, and various types of bias in judicial decision-making, the analysis considers how experiments with judges, lay participants, and other legally trained populations have contributed to our understanding of the psychological processes involved in fact-finding and legal decision-making. It explores how behavioral economics, dual process models, cultural cognition, and motivated reasoning frameworks have been used to inform experimental research. The chapter concludes with a discussion of what findings add to our normative understanding of issues like accuracy and neutrality in decision-making and a call to better integrate knowledge gained through experimental methods across disciplinary boundaries.

La argumentación jurídica en la toma de decisión judicial

2014 ◽  
pp. 1347-1368
Author(s):  
Francisco Javier EZQUIAGA GANUZAS
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Legal Reasoning ◽  
Mental Activity ◽  
Judicial Decision ◽  
Judicial Decision Making ◽  
Context Of Discovery

LABURPENA: Erabaki judizialak ez dira jarduera mental hutsak, badute argudiozko osagai bat ere, eta hura kontuan hartzeak hobetu egin dezake erabakia. Aurkikuntzaren testuingurua kontuan hartzen duen argudio juridiko batean errazago zehaztu ahal dira epai baten motibazioa legala, arrazionala, nahikoa eta osoa izateko baldintzak. Sarritan, motibazioak ez ditu kontuan hartzen erabilitako argudioen hautaketa, haien erabilera, alderdien edo beste magistratuen argudioen aurkezpena eta debatea, eta horiek, era honetan, epaia motibatzen duten baldintzen artean leudeke. RESUMEN: La toma de decisión judicial no es sólo una actividad mental, sino que tiene un componente argumentativo que tomado en cuenta puede mejorar la decisión. Una teoría de la argumentación jurídica que se ocupe del contexto de descubrimiento permite determinar de una manera más precisa los requisitos de una motivación legal, racional, suficiente y completa de la sentencia y, en consecuencia, su control. Aspectos que frecuentemente escapan del contenido de una adecuada motivación, como la selección de los argumentos interpretativos empleados, la forma de su uso, la presentación y debate de los argumentos de las partes o de otros magistrados, quedarían incluidos de este modo entre los requisitos motivatorios de la sentencia. ABSTRACT: The judicial decision making is not only a mental activity but it has an argumentative part that if it is taken into account can improve the decision. A theory about the legal reasoning that deals with the context of discovery allows to establish in a more precise way the requirements for a legal, rational, sufficient and complete reasoning and accordingly its control. Aspects that do often elude the content of an appropriate motivation, as the choice of the used interpretative arguments, the form of its use, the introduction and debate of the arguments by the parts or other judges, which would in this way be included among the motivating requisites of the judgment.

scholarly journals Feminist Judgments: Comparative Socio-Legal Perspectives on Judicial Decision Making and Gender Justice

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (9) ◽  
pp. 1215-1223
Author(s):  
Linda L. Berger ◽  
Bridget J. Crawford ◽  
Kathryn M. Stanchi
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
International Law ◽  
Legal Reasoning ◽  
Gender Justice ◽  
Sociology Of Law ◽  
International Institute ◽  
Judicial Decision ◽  
Judicial Decision Making ◽  
Global Projects ◽  
And Gender

This collection of essays is the product of the workshop Feminist Judgments: Comparative Socio-Legal Perspectives on Judicial Decision Making and Gender Justice held at the International Institute for the Sociology of Law (Oñati, Spain) in May, 2017. The papers explain and explore the multiple global projects that attempt to rewrite judicial opinions by incorporating feminist legal reasoning or methods. Each essay grows out of the authors’ experiences working with projects based in a particular socio-political, geographical, historical and jurisprudential context: Canada, England, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Scotland, and a multi-jurisdictional international law project. Collectively, the essays bring new insights, methods and challenges to the study of the feminist project of equal justice across the boundaries of culture, race, nation and gender. Esta colección de artículos es producto del seminario Feminist Judgments: Comparative Socio-Legal Perspectives on Judicial Decision Making and Gender Justice, que tuvo lugar en el Instituto Internacional de Sociología Jurídica (Oñati, España), en mayo de 2017. Los artículos explican y exploran los múltiples proyectos globales que intentan reescribir opiniones judiciales incorporando razonamientos o métodos jurídicos feministas. Cada artículo proviene de las experiencias de las autoras en su trabajo con proyectos basados en un contexto sociopolítico, geográfico, histórico y jurisprudencial concreto: Canadá, Inglaterra, Australia, Irlanda, Nueva Zelanda, Escocia y un proyecto jurídico internacional multijurisdiccional. En conjunto, los artículos aportan nuevos enfoques, métodos y desafíos al estudio del proyecto feminista de justicia igualitaria, más allá de los límites de culturas, razas, países y géneros.

Human Dignity in the Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Paul Costa
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Legal Reasoning ◽  
Central Element ◽  
Judicial Decision ◽  
Judicial Decision Making ◽  
Judicial Decisions ◽  
European Court ◽  
Conceptual Link

The chapter first gives several examples of where ‘dignity’ (or ‘a person’s dignity’, or ‘human dignity’) has been a central element in the reasoning of the Court, or in the arguments advanced by judges in separate opinions. Based on this analysis, the principal question addressed is why the Court draws on ‘dignity’, a word neither explicitly nor, implicitly mentioned in the text of the Convention or the Protocols. What are the reasons for having—or not having—recourse to the concept of dignity in judicial decisions? Is there any objective reason for such choice? Or does it depend on the subjective preferences of the judges sitting on the bench? Is ‘dignity’ necessary for judicial decision-making in order to reach a specific conclusion in a case? Or does ‘dignity’ simply reinforce the legal reasoning of the Court, enabling the Court to give more weight to the arguments of one of the parties in the case? Finally, the chapter looks for a possible conceptual link between human dignity and human rights, insofar as this arises from the jurisprudence of the Strasbourg Court.

Murder under duress and judicial decision-making in the House of Lords

Legal Studies ◽  
1988 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-73
Author(s):  
Lynden Walters
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Legal Reasoning ◽  
Judicial Decision ◽  
Judicial Decision Making ◽  
House Of Lords ◽  
Present Decade ◽  
Mental Element

While finding fault with House of Lords’ decisions in the field ofcriminal law is by no means a new academic sport, the present decade is proving particularly fruitful for the critic. The precise ramifications of Caldwelll and Lawrence are still being thrashed out. seymour, on manslaughter, was unforgiveably ambiguous. Moloney and Hancock and Shankland left the mental element in murder hopelessly opaque. In impossible attempts Anderton v Ryan revealed a degree of ineptitude which even the House of Lords had to recognise in overruling itselfonly a year later in Shivpuri.It is not simply a questionofacademics taking issue with the outcomeof a particular decision. The further, and in some respects even more worrying, aspect of many of these decisions is the quality of the legal reasoning they embody.

Context Effects in Judicial Decision Making

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey J. Rachlinski ◽  
Chris Guthrie ◽  
Andrew J. Wistrich
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Context Effects ◽  
Judicial Decision ◽  
Judicial Decision Making
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