Abstract [eng] |
The importance of legal reasoning in the decision-making process, and in law in general, cannot be denied. Reasoning determines the substance of a decision, the completeness of the evaluation of the circumstances, the thought process of the decision-maker, the compliance with the law and even the impact of value and moral considerations on the evaluation of a particular situation. It is also a very dynamic process, changing with the concept of law and adapting to society, and therefore requires constant attention not only from decision-makers, but also from scholars and society. All of this determines how justice will be ensured in a country, and argumentation as a written expression of this - as an indicator - reveals that. It is therefore a job that requires a great deal of responsibility and skill. In order to show the complexity of legal argumentation, this paper also draws on the notion of legal discretion that exists alongside legal argumentation and influences it. This work raises the fundamental questions of how these legal categories are related, how they work together and, most importantly, what are the limits of legal argumentation resulting from this relationship. This work is divided into three parts. The first part highlights the problems of the concept of legal argumentation, drawing on the insights of legal scholars and also focusing on the concept of legal interpretation and legal discourse, which are crucial for the understanding of legal argumentation. The first part also touches upon the issue of the limits of legal argumentation (both in terms of the structure and correct formulation of an argument and other principled rules). The second part analyses the concept and limitations of legal discretion (which also limit argumentation), and the third part analyses the case law of the European Court of Human Rights in order to show how the limitations of legal argumentation (and discretion) manifest themselves in practice. In this work, the analysis of both scholarly positions and case law shows that the limits to legal argumentation are not only determined by procedural or other rules reflected in the legislation, which even in the legislation nowhere directly addresses legal argumentation in particular, but rather the judicial decision-making process in a general sense, but also by legal principles, moral norms, customs, judicial self-consciousness, ethics, societal judgement, and other similar factors. It follows that legal argumentation is limited only by its dependence on the field in which it is being argued - the law (its distinctive language, formulation, professional requirements, etc.). |