Judges must justify rulings through legal reasoning rather than personal preference or popular will.

Evidence

The first approach, which I shall call the legal perspective, distinguishes judicial decision making from the decision making of other political actors, such as legislators and executives. According to this perspective, judicial decision making is distinctive because judges are expected to decide cases according to law, rather than on the basis of personal predilection or public opinion, and because they must justify their rulings through a process of legal reasoning. Responding to this expectation, judicial decisions represent the judges’ best understanding of what the law requires. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 2437

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘the legal perspective’ — the court’s core distinction between judicial and ordinary political decision making.
• XREF: Anchors the expectation of reasoned justification central to legitimacy debates in earlier chapters. — connects to: Binding consultation requires concrete preference-communicating institutions, not rulers’ claims to embody the will. — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 167; Judges’ scheduling self-interest can license weaker objections to survive. — , Harr Jonathan - A Civil Action , 1742; Judges’ attitudes and institutional context, not law, drive their rulings. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 2438 (+11 more)

Broader Connections

• Judges deciding on personal notions of right create incalculable future mischief through precedent #contradicts (0.92) — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process, 1061
• Judges’ personal attributes and even trivial bodily states can shape decisions #contradicts (0.91)
• Judges’ attitudes and institutional context, not law, drive their rulings. #contradicts (0.90) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 2438
• The political perspective holds that judges’ attitudes determine their rulings. #contradicts (0.89) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 2647
• Judges create legal rules by weighing case similarities, not by applying fixed rules #contradicts (0.89) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1263
• Judges rely on personal values when competing legal principles are evenly balanced #contradicts (0.88) — Ruggero J. Aldisert, Agatha D. Aldisert, Logic for Lawyers- A Guide to Clear…, 156
• Judges create law when forced to choose among competing interpretations. #contradicts (0.87) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 196
• Judges create and reshape legal rules by reasoning analogically across cases, not by deduction #contradicts (0.87) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 2542
• Judges create the rules they apply rather than applying preexisting rules. #contradicts (0.86) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 2526
• Pragmatic law judges rules by their consequences, not their origins. #contradicts (0.85) — Richard A. Posner, What Has Pragmatism to Offer Law?, 38