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When Judges Have Reasons Not To Give Reasons: A Comparative Law Approach, Mathilde Cohen

Mathilde Cohen

Influential theories of law have celebrated judicial reason- giving as furthering a host of democratic values, including judges’ accountability, citizens’ participation in adjudication, and a more accurate and transparent decision-making process. This Article has two main purposes. First, it argues that although reason- giving is important, it is often in tension with other values of the judicial process, such as guidance, sincerity, and efficiency. Reason-giving must, therefore, be balanced against these competing values. In other words, judges sometimes have reasons not to give reasons. Second, contrary to common intuition, common law and civil law systems deal with this tension between …

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Ex Ante Versus Ex Post Deliberations: Two Models Of Judicial Deliberations In Courts Of Last Resort, Mathilde Cohen

Mathilde Cohen

This Article discusses supreme and constitutional courts’ internal organizational cultures, that is, the way in which justices organize their work and establish informal decision-making norms. Courts of last resort are often presented as exemplary deliberative institutions. The conference meeting, which convenes judges in quiet seclusion to debate, has been glorified as the most significant step in a court’s decision-making process. Based in part on qualitative empirical research, I argue, however, that French, American, and European Justices may not deliberate in the full sense that deliberative democrats have theorized. The Article distinguishes two types of high court deliberations, which I call …

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Reason Giving In Court Practice: Decision-Makers At The Crossroads, Mathilde Cohen

Mathilde Cohen

According to liberal democratic theory, public institutions’ practice—and sometimes duty—to give reasons is required so that each individual may view the state as reasonable and, therefore, legitimate. Does the giving of reasons in actual court practice achieve these goals? Drawing on empirical research carried out in a French court, this Article shows that, in practice, reason-giving often falls either short of democracy or beyond democracy. Reasons fall short of democracy in the first case because they are transformed from a device designed to “protect” citizens from arbitrariness into a professional norm intended to “protect” the judges themselves and perhaps further …

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Full-Text Articles in Judges

When Judges Have Reasons Not To Give Reasons: A Comparative Law Approach, Mathilde Cohen

Mathilde Cohen

Ex Ante Versus Ex Post Deliberations: Two Models Of Judicial Deliberations In Courts Of Last Resort, Mathilde Cohen

Mathilde Cohen

Reason Giving In Court Practice: Decision-Makers At The Crossroads, Mathilde Cohen

Mathilde Cohen