Table Of ContentIus Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice 69
Editors
Mátyás Bencze · Gar Yein Ng
How to Measure
the Quality
of Judicial
Reasoning
Ius Gentium: Comparative
Perspectives on Law and Justice
Volume 69
Series editors
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á á
M ty s Bencze Gar Yein Ng
(cid:129)
Editors
How to Measure the Quality
of Judicial Reasoning
123
Editors
Mátyás Bencze Gar YeinNg
Faculty of Law Schoolof Law
University of Debrecen University of Buckingham
Debrecen, Hungary Buckingham, UK
and
HASCentre for Social Sciences
Centreof Social Sciences, Institute for
LegalStudies
Budapest, Hungary
ISSN 1534-6781 ISSN 2214-9902 (electronic)
Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives onLawandJustice
ISBN978-3-319-97315-9 ISBN978-3-319-97316-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97316-6
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Contents
Measuring the Unmeasurable?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Mátyás Bencze and Gar Yein Ng
Judging and the Ethical Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Zenon Bańkowski
How to Measure? An Essay on the Social Context of Measuring
Quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Zoltán Fleck
Judicial Reasoning from the Perspective of Behavioural Law and
Economics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Mariusz Jerzy Golecki
Quality of Justice and Lay Participation in the Light of Scientific
Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Attila Badó
Obstacles and Opportunities—Measuring the Quality of Judicial
Reasoning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Mátyás Bencze
Quality of Judicial Reasoning: England and Wales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Gar Yein Ng
Quality of Justice and of Judicial Reasoning in Italy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Francesco Contini
The Quality of Adjudication in France. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Emmanuel Jeuland
Quality of Legal Decisions: The Criteria Established
by the Finnish Judiciary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Markku Kiikeri
v
vi Contents
The Quality of Justice and of Judicial Reasoning in the Czech
Republic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Zdenek Kühn
Methods of Quality Assessment of Judicial Reasoning in Hungary . . . . 187
Ágnes Kovács, Mátyás Bencze and Zsolt Ződi
Quality of Reasoning in International Criminal Tribunals. . . . . . . . . . . 207
Marjan Ajevski
The Quality of Decision-Making at the Court of Justice
of the European Union. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
Gerard Conway
Reflections on Legal Reasoning in the Case Law of the European
Court of Human Rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
David Thor Björgvinsson
Editors and Contributors
About the Editors
Mátyás Bencze is a former judge, and is currently a Professor of Law at the
UniversityofDebrecenLawSchoolandaResearchFellowatHungarianAcademyof
Sciences, Centre of Social Sciences, Institute for Legal Studies, Hungary. His main
research interest is legal sociology with special emphasis on the sociological back-
ground and quality assessment of adjudication. He is the author of two books, and
numerous articles and essays. He has been involved in some international scientific
cooperation between European countries. e-mail: [email protected]
Gar Yein Ng iscurrentlyaLecturerinLawattheUniversityofBuckingham,but
hasworkedacrossavarietyofuniversitiesacrossEurope,includingtheUniversities
of Utrecht, Maastricht, and Central European University in Hungary. She has con-
ducted research in projects for the OSCE, Council of Europe, European Union
amongstothers.Herfieldofexpertiseisincomparativeconstitutionallawandjudicial
studies.Herareasofresearchincludecomparativepubliclaw,judicialstudies,pro-
cedurallaw,andcourtmanagement.e-mail:[email protected]
Contributors
Marjan Ajevski Law School, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK
AttilaBadó FacultyofLaw,InstituteofComparativeLaw,UniversityofSzeged,
Szeged, Hungary
Zenon Bańkowski School of Law, Edinburgh University, Edinburgh, UK
Mátyás Bencze Faculty of Law, Department of Legal Theory, University of
Debrecen, Debrecen, Hungary; HAS Centre of Social Sciences Institute for Legal
Studies, Budapest, Hungary
vii
viii EditorsandContributors
David Thor Björgvinsson University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland
Francesco Contini Research Institute on Judicial Systems – National Research
Council of Italy (IRSIG-CNR), Bologna, Italy
Gerard Conway Brunel Law School, Brunel University London, London, UK
Zoltán Fleck Faculty of Law, Department for Sociology of Law, Eötvös Loránd
University, Budapest, Hungary
Mariusz Jerzy Golecki Faculty of Law and Administration, University of Lodz,
Lodz, Poland
Emmanuel Jeuland Sorbonne Law School, University Paris 1 Pantheon
Sorbonne, Paris, France
Markku Kiikeri Faculty of Law, University of Lapland, Rovaniemi, Finland
Ãgnes Kovács Faculty of Law, Department of Legal Theory and Sociology of
Law, University of Debrecen, Debrecen, Hungary
Zdenek Kühn Charles University Law School, Prague, Czech Republic
Gar Yein Ng School of Law, University of Buckingham, Buckingham, UK
Zsolt Ződi HAS Centre of Social Sciences Institute for Legal Studies, Budapest,
Hungary; CorvinusBusiness School, Department ofInfocommunication,Corvinus
University of Budapest, Budapest, Hungary
Measuring the Unmeasurable?
Mátyás Bencze and Gar Yein Ng
Abstract Properlyreasonedjudgmentsareimportantforpublictrust,dignityofthe
parties, reflecting independent and impartial dispute resolution and ultimately the
legitimacy of the judiciary and courts. At the same time, a politically and socially
determinedactivitysuchasjudicialreasoningwillalwaysresistevaluationbasedon
numbersorotherexactterms.Therewillalwaysbespecialcircumstancesthatmust
be considered in the evaluation of a judgment or a particular judicial practice.
Besides, theconstitutionalrequirement forjudicial independence may also prevent
policy makers from introducing legal or formal standards regarding the quality of
judicialreasoning.Itisnotacoincidencethereforethatthatinthemajorityoflegal
systems examined focus mostly on efficiency issues when it comes to objective
evaluation of the performance of the judicial system. As for evaluation and
improvement of reasoning quality only certain “soft methods” can be appropriate.
These kind of methods do not violate traditional understanding of judicial inde-
pendence and it can be rightly assumed that members of the judiciary are profes-
sionalenoughtobesensitivetotheresultsofsofterqualityassessment.Atthesame
time, quality assessment cannot be separated from the institutional and social
background of the assessed judicial activity.
M.Bencze
FacultyofLaw,DepartmentofLegalTheory,UniversityofDebrecen,Debrecen,Hungary
e-mail:[email protected]
M.Bencze
HASCentreforSocialSciences,CentreofSocialSciences,InstituteforLegalStudies,
Budapest,Hungary
G.Y.Ng(&)
SchoolofLaw,UniversityofBuckingham,Buckingham,UK
e-mail:[email protected]
©SpringerInternationalPublishingAG,partofSpringerNature2018 1
M.BenczeandG.Y.Ng(eds.),HowtoMeasuretheQualityofJudicialReasoning,
IusGentium:ComparativePerspectivesonLawandJustice69,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97316-6_1
