Function of “Normative Judgment” in Legal Reasoning

Abstract

Legal interpretation and the application of law are core topics of legal methodology. However, while a vast amount of research has been accumulated on legal interpretation, there is a dearth of research on applying the law to individual cases. In this paper, I examine the process of applying laws to specific cases using the frame of “normative judgment.” As seen in this paper, legal reasoning in our practice does not simply consist of legal interpretation and fact-finding. There are numerous detailed decisions that connect legal interpretation, fact-finding, and final conclusions. Normative judgment is a conceptual tool used to explain these detailed decisions. If we compare legal reasoning to the human body, normative judgments are like capillaries that supply oxygen and nutrients while penetrating all areas of the human body. As is well known, modern laws are based on general abstraction and, therefore, cannot cover all individual cases. Nevertheless, the existing legal methodology excessively focuses on legal interpretation issues and neglects legal application and normative judgment, which inevitably has clear limitations in understanding the complexity of legal reasoning. In this paper, I sought to find ways to get closer to the reality of legal reasoning in our practice by examining the functions and types of normative judgments.