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(iii) Whether the magistrate was properly guided by counsel on these issues through
comprehensive submissions and arguments; and

(iv)Whether the reasons for the magistrate’s decision were capable of being ascertained by
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reference to the evidentiary record.”

How to Start Writing Reasons

The Tools for Professional Writers: A summary of the Essentials for Writing Effective

Judgments by John T. Salatti, Esq. provides some helpful guidelines and principles which can
assist magistrates in their writing of reasons for their decision. These can be summarized as

follows:

1. Organize your Facts and Background - The magistrate can organize his facts around
the themes most relevant to his analysis or include only the critical facts that are

essential to the legal analysis.

2. The Decision or Legal Conclusion - Next state your decision or legal conclusion of

the case at hand.

3. The Reasons- Identify all the reasons that support your decision or legal conclusion.
Focus on listing all the bases that support why your decision is correct. The reasons

should include the principles, basis and evidence which the magistrate relied on to

decide the case. The reasons should also include the issues which were critical to the
decision and how those issues were resolved.

4. Coherence

Vertical Coherence - between you reasons to the legal conclusion or decision- once
you have laid out your supporting reasons an identified how many of them you have,

you need to double-check their relationship to the legal conclusion by examining the

reasons’ direct relevance to the legal conclusion and their independence from each
other.

7 Machel Montano, Kernel Roberts v Cpl. 12167 Sewdass Mag. App. No.108 of 2016 Yorke Soo Hon JA, Mohammed JA at
[87]
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