The challenge of legal interpretation
Keywords:
interpretation, argumentation, adjudicationAbstract
The judiciary is often conceived as in charge of determining the existent and content of legal duties. However, there is no agreement between legal scholars as to what is involved in that activity. There is one aspect, however, in which good part of different theories seem to coincide, to wit, that courts adjudicating cases must provide justificatory reasons for their decisions. In court rulings, the reasons that support decisions are of central importance. As our institutions are designed, we not only ask courts to decide our legal disputes, but we also require them to do so in a justified (motivated) way. But which are the legally relevant reasons in judicial adjudication? In what follows, we advance some conceptual distinctions for the analysis of these reasons. In doing so, we will focus on the challenges posed by legal interpretation. Our aim is to propose a set of tools that can serve in the evaluation of the normative premises of legal arguments, and, within them, the ones made by courts.
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