Interpreting officials must decide like cases alike and respect legislative position.

Evidence

In relation to the motorcycle issue, the magistrate has what these materials will call a Power of reasoned elaboration. This means two principalthi T - It means, first of all, that the magistrate is obliged to resolve the issue before him on the assumption that the answer will be the same in all like cases. He is not to say to himself, “Well, this morning it seems to me that a motorcycle is not a motor car” assuming that another magis- trate or even he himself will te free to think the opposite in another case. He is to decide the question, in other words, as a question of law. … Secondly, the magistrate is obliged to relate his decision in some reasoned fashion to the speed statute out of which the question arises. He is not to think of himself as in the same position as a legislator taking part in the enactment of the statute in the first place. He is not to say simply, “I think that motorcycles should or should not be treated in the same way as ordinary automobiles for the purposes of regulating speed on public highways”. Tie is obliged, instead to respect the position of the legislature in the institutional system. .He is to ask himself, “Ought this statute which the legislature has enacted to be read as including or as not including a motorcycle?” — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process, 2734

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the central concept of ‘power of reasoned elaboration’ through its two obligations.
• XREF: Core of the whole legal-process interpretation method the course is organized around. — connects to: Discretion differs by whether the actor must relate reasons across decisions. — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process: Basic Problems in…, 2748; The formal principle of justice requires treating relevantly similar cases alike — HLA Hart, The Concept of Law (Clarendon Law…, 418

Broader Connections

• The formal principle of justice requires treating relevantly similar cases alike #corroborates (0.95) — HLA Hart, The Concept of Law (Clarendon Law…, 418