The judicial decision on the facts and the law. An argument by analogy
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Abstract
This essay proposes an analogy between the decision on the facts at issue in a court case (the quaestio facti) and the decision on the law applicable to those facts (the quaestio iuris). Firstly, it identifies a number of relevant features that both decisions have in common. Secondly, on the basis of these common features, it attempts to show that some theses that are considered peacefully applicable to the former type of decision should also be accepted in relation to the latter.
In particular, it could be admitted that, in the context of a state that accepts the principles of the rule of law, both decisions aim to truthfully record a pre-existing fact and that, in this sense, the requirement to justify them refers to a requirement of epistemic justification. In this way, it is argued, the truth-value sought is not only an epistemic value, but also a political-moral value. Moreover, on the basis of the proposed analogy, it is argued that certain principles and institutions that are generally recognised in relation to quaestio facti decisions (such as the possibility of regulating the admissibility, the evaluation or the conditions of sufficiency of the evidence/arguments presented) could legitimately be applicable to quaestio iuris decisions as well.
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