Abstract
In this paper the author discusses the question of the adequacy of the use of contemporary dialogical models as logical tools for analysis, representation and evaluation of legal argumentation, and especially legal justification. Despite the fundamental attractiveness of the binary structure of those dialogical models, it seems that their use in the modelling of legal justification urges us to consider the status of the third element which enters the dialogical interaction of the two parties: the element which represents the function of the judge or arbiter in it. In this paper, the central place is given to the possible and actual arguments pro and contra the inclusion of the third, judicial element in the basic dialogical structure. Finally, the arguments “pro” are found outweighing, because of the fact that the role of the judge guarantees not only the termination of the controversy according to the legal standards, but also the proper use of the dialogue rules by the parties in legal context, in which the possibility of subversive dialogical behavior is constantly being open.
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Notes
- 1.
However, as Jan Woleński observed in the discussion during the colloquium Argumentation and Law (Lille, France, November 14–16, 2005), in the history of philosophical thought counter-examples for this Perelman’s claim could be found. Some of them were analyzed in the introductory part of Woleński’s communication “Formal and informal in legal logic”.
- 2.
Compare the well-known Toulmin’s view of logic as “generalized jurisprudence” (Toulmin, 1958, p. 7).
- 3.
This line of elaboration of the dialogical pattern can be traced back to Socrates and the sophists, and followed through the work of Plato and Aristotle, to that of the medieval logicians, especially in the framework of their theories of obligationes.
- 4.
Cf. infra.
- 5.
This book is a revised version of Lodder’s dissertation “DiaLaw – on legal justification and dialog games”, defended on June 5th 1988 at the Universiteit Maastricht.
- 6.
A more developed version of the dialogue game for adjudication dialogues was presented by Henry Prakken in his communication during the colloquium Argumentation and Law; for the theoretical foundations of the proposed model, its formal structure and its functioning on practical examples see Prakken (2008. pp. 305–328).
- 7.
My source was the draft version of the book, which, at least by the October 29, 2005, was available on the WWW http://www.rechten.unimaas.nl/metajuridica/hage/publications/PDF_files/Chapter%209.pdf
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Trajanoska, A.D. (2010). The Logical Structure of Legal Justification: Dialogue or “Trialogue”?. In: Gabbay, D., Canivez, P., Rahman, S., Thiercelin, A. (eds) Approaches to Legal Rationality. Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science, vol 20. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9588-6_13
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