Journal of the Charles University Law Faculty
Vojtěch Hau
Author’s affiliation:
Faculty of Law, Charles University in Prague
Analysis of Written Reasoning of Civil Judgments
Jurisprudence 6/2023 Section: Articles Page: 1-18
Keywords: judicial decision, judicial decision-making, legal writing, legal language, civil procedure
Abstract: In its introduction, the article focuses on describing the ideal reasoning of a judgment and on identifying the most common shortcomings in written reasoning. These findings provide a background to criteria of content analysis, which subjects 150 civil judgments to empirical research. Finally, the article presents the results of the analysis, discusses them, and proposes its own solutions to the identified shortcomings. In addition, the article observes various ways of adopting case law and doctrinal conclusions into legal reasoning and monitors their frequency or compares certain elements of reasoning across generations of judges.
