Page 141 - Magistrates Conference 2019

(i) Direct Relevance - does each supporting reason relate directly to or directly
support the legal conclusion? In some cases one reason may actually be a sub-

point of another point and thus affect the organization of your statement of
reasons.

(ii) Independence - the magistrate should look at whether each supporting reason

is sufficient in and of itself to prove why the legal conclusion is correct or are
all the reasons needed to buttress the decision.

Horizontal Coherence - the magistrate should examine the horizontal coherence by

identifying any topics that related to each other, assessing the weight of the reasons

and selecting the optimal order.
(i) Relationship - examine your reasons and determine whether two or more can

be grouped together under a common theme or heading.
(ii) Weight of each reason - In most cases one reason may be more important than

another and this should be reflected in the document. This can be reflected in
the document through the organization of the reasons, for example by order:

the important reasons can be listed first. The weight of the reasons can also be

reflected to the reader by indication by the magistrate.
(iii) Order of Reasons - order of reasons by strength or by logic?

• Strength - in relation to the point on weight above, readers tend to

believe that the first item in a series is the most important and thus it is
wise to present the strongest reason first.

• Logic - Do your reasons need to be presented in a logical order to be

more effective? The following are questions to be answered about the
logical order of your material:

- Would your decision be best served by a discussion that moves
from more specific bases to more general ones or vice versa?

- Should procedural bases for your decision precede substantive ones
- Within a discussion of substantive, do you lead with simple legal

questions and move to complex ones?

5. Repeat the Process-Once the magistrate has completed step 4 for the legal conclusion

and its immediate sub-points, repeat step 3 and then 4 for each of the supporting

Page 10 of 26