Description
Book SynopsisGood Judgment, based upon the author''s experience as a lawyer, law professor, and judge, explores the role of the judge and the art of judging. Engaging with the American, English, and Commonwealth literature on the role of the judge in the common law tradition, Good Judgment addresses the following questions: What exactly do judges do? What is properly within their role and what falls outside? How do judges approach their decision-making task?
In an attempt to explain and reconcile two fundamental features of judging, namely judicial choice and judicial discipline, this book explores the nature and extent of judicial choice in the common law legal tradition and the structural features of that tradition that control and constrain that element of choice. As Sharpe explains, the law does not always provide clear answers, and judges are often left with difficult choices to make, but the power of judicial choice is disciplined and constrained and judges are no
Trade Review
"Good Judgment: Making Judicial Decisions, by the Canadian jurist and legal academic Robert J. Sharpe, represents a refreshing and deeply thoughtful departure from binary arguments about how and why judges make decisions." -- U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel * Law 360, August 31, 2018 *
Table of Contents
1. Introduction 2. A Judge’s Work 3. Is the Law Uncertain? 4. Do Judges Make Law? 5. Rules, Principles and Policies 6. Disciplined Judicial Decision-Making 7. Working with Precedent 8. Authority: What Counts? 9. Judicial Decision Making: A Case Study 10. Standard of Review and Discretion 11. Role of the Judge in a Constitutional Democracy 12. A Judicial State of Mind
