Legal reasoning is the process of providing reasons for legal decisions, acts, or opinions about the meaning of law and its relevance. It is a method of thought and argument used by legal professionals when applying legal rules to specific situations.
Legal reasoning is a method of thought and argument used by lawyers and judges when applying legal rules to specific interactions among legal persons. Legal reasoning is thinking which the learners and researchers should use in order to reach a legal conclusion and make further decisions. Law enables to provide solution to conflicts that may arise by setting precedents in past, present and future. The practice of law is about experience and through experience we understand the logic. It is the tool that empowers the user to understand and come to conclusion about legal judgments.
Legal reasoning reveals why and how the court, lawyer or judge came to their decision or argument on the case.
There are core elements that must appear and be addressed in the reasoning:
The question or the legal issue before the court
The relevant facts of the case
The legal rule
Other considerations that may be brought before the court
As such, there is the burden to address the stated elements clearly and concisely. This may be done using a deductive or analytical reasoning.
Practical Reasoning: Legal reasoning is a specific type of practical reasoning that guides actions and shows whether there are good reasons for a proposed action or something already done.
Rationality: Rationality in action requires attention to facts and reasons relevant to those facts. This involves reasoning about evidence and the rules or norms that serve as reasons for action.
Elements of Legal Reasoning: Core elements that appear and are addressed in legal reasoning include the legal issue, relevant facts, and the applicable legal rule.
Logic, Justice, Experience, and Policy: Basic components include logic (consistency and equal application of the law), justice (doing right between parties based on evidence), experience, and policy (assessing the future consequences of a decision).
Impact on Judicial Decision-Making
Legal reasoning is how a court explains its legal ruling, which helps other courts and legal professionals follow the ruling in future proceedings. It links the law to the facts, justifying the court's decision. Judges consider all relevant evidence using logic, constitutional values, and morality to arrive at a just and equitable decision.
Induction and Deduction in Legal Reasoning
Deductive Method: This involves deriving conclusions from stated premises and applying precedents and laws equally. From the title we understand that this method is about deduction of conclusions, assumptions and both of them collectively. It is process that gives reasoning and its principle varies from general to particular hence makes the base broader. It provides the premise because its vast reasoning. It has other components such as analytical, abstract and a priori method. What the abstract method indicates is the ideology and the approach for the study. It is the rational approach qualifies it as scientific. It is basically a rational approach in accordance with the tenets of deductive logic. It is the logic that uses a general statement as the basis of argument.
If we focus on syllogism of this method, it's major components consists a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion.
Inductive Method: Drawing conclusions from particular instances to form general principles or rules.Scientific method of research emphasizes and works on the principle of induction. It is the process which involves the reasoning from particular cases to whole group of cases, from specific instances of the concerning law. It can also be called the historical or empirical or a posterior method. It can be also said that it is a practical ideology to legal work, study and research problems. It is that bridge which covers the gap in between theoretical and practice.
It ignites the chain reaction between the causes and further establishes the relation in between them. It is a collective of instances and facts also known as raw data of experience, that is the reason it is called as empirical. The data is can be of various field and background such as statistics, historical records, etc. as long as it related. Print Page
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