Legal Arguments and Case Law Precedents. A Judicial-Sociological Experiment Between Theory and Practice

The object of this contribution is to analyze some of the main types of legal arguments usually found in judicial precedents in order to grasp their relevance and range in practice. The analysis is drawn from the case law of the Italian Court of Cassation Civil United Sections with a view also to el...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: Zorzetto, Silvia
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2022
País:México
Institución:UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL AUTÓNOMA DE MÉXICO
Repositorio:Problema. Anuario de Filosofía y Teoría del Derecho
Idioma:español
OAI Identifier:oai:ojs.pkp.sfu.ca:article/17032
Acceso en línea:https://revistas.juridicas.unam.mx/index.php/filosofia-derecho/article/view/17032
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Case Law Precedent
Legal Arguments
Legal Reasoning
Sources of Law
Stare Decisis Doctrine
Precedentes judiciales
argumentos jurídicos
razonamiento jurídico
fuentes del derecho
doctrina del stare decisis
Descripción
Sumario:The object of this contribution is to analyze some of the main types of legal arguments usually found in judicial precedents in order to grasp their relevance and range in practice. The analysis is drawn from the case law of the Italian Court of Cassation Civil United Sections with a view also to elicit a comparison between the uses of judicial precedents in different judicial systems. However, the analysis is of an explanatory or critical-reconstructive nature and illustrates a series of uses and problems linked to judicial reasoning, the scope of which is general and therefore, goes beyond the specific juridical context at hand. The analysis is conducted from an internal point of view and, particularly from the standpoint of the decision-maker (i. e., the judge) and addresses some vexatae quaestiones surrounding the idea that case law is the source of law in practice. The study defends the thesis that the argument from precedent is, in fact, a very heterogeneous and much more extensive family of arguments than is usually assumed from traditional taxonomies of legal arguments. Moreover, the study defends the thesis that case law is inevitably a “source of law” for pragmatic reasons inherent to judicial reasoning.