Reconstructing interpretative argumentation in legal decisions; a pragma-dialectial approach

When a judge resolves an interpretation problem in deciding a legal case, he has a choice of various types of interpretative arguments to justify his decision. Ideally, these arguments are recognizable in the justification of the decision. But in practice the arguments are not always presented explicitly, clearly and in a well-ordered fashion. The critical reader who wants to evaluate these reasons often has to reconstruct the argumentation. This study provides tools for analyzing and evaluating interpretative arguments in legal decisions. In answering the central questions about this rational reconstruction of interpretative argumentation, it is the pragme-dialectial argumentation theory that is taken as a general framework.