The Objectivity of Judicial Decisions ─ A Comparative Analysis of Nine Jurisdictions

This book discusses how judges qualify their activities as objective. The data for this project was retrieved from a large sample of cases using Langacker’s methodology. The sample included over a thousand decisions from Brazil, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Romania and the UK. The decisions considered allegations of judicial bias, unfairness, and injustice. Pre-judices are shared cognitive methods that legal practitioners perceive as necessary. The results of the study directly confirm Pierre Legrand’s claims of pre-judices in legal discourse, and as corollary, Jules L. Coleman and Brian Leiter’s idea of modest objectivity in law.

Vito Breda is the Research Leader of the Comparative Law Group at the School of Law of the University of Southern Queensland. He held a tenure position in Cardiff and renewed visiting chairs at the University of Deusto. His research interests include European Law and Comparative Law.