Understanding Judicial Reasoning: Controversies, Concepts and Cases

Robert A. Kominar is an associate professor in the Department of Law and
Justice at Laurentian University.

How do judges reason in deciding the cases before them? This
accessible—although problematic—book, which includes a foreword by
the late Justice John Sopinka of the Supreme Court of Canada, describes
not how judges come to determine the facts in specific legal cases, but
rather how they come to identify the laws that apply to cases and go
about interpreting and delimiting those laws. In his discussion of the
doctrine of binding precedent, the author considers what judges are
authorized to do when the precedents do not point clearly to a specific
answer—a process he describes as “reasoning from principle.”

The discussions of reasoning from past precedent are well organized and
informative. However, the section on reasoning from principle suffers
from trying to be philosophical without providing enough background to
make the approach work. The book also includes numerous references to
judicial decisions (not all of which are relevant to the discussion at
hand) and a series of case studies.

Although suitable as an introduction to the practices of courts in
Canadian common-law jurisdictions, this book is undermined by its overly
uncritical stance on judicial reasoning practices.