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Components of Legal Concepts: Quality of Law, Evaluative Judgement, and Metaphorical Framing of Article 8 ECHR
Author(s) -
Slosser Jacob Livingston
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
european law journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.351
H-Index - 54
eISSN - 1468-0386
pISSN - 1351-5993
DOI - 10.1111/eulj.12347
Subject(s) - metaphor , judgement , framing (construction) , law , salience (neuroscience) , dissent , psychology , cognitive linguistics , epistemology , sociology , cognition , political science , linguistics , cognitive psychology , philosophy , history , archaeology , neuroscience , politics
This paper looks at the use of metaphor and its effect on the interpretation of the ‘quality of law’ in Art. 8 cases of the European Court of Human Rights. It demonstrates the Court's reproduction of specific metaphorical frames ‐ a finding consistent with the use of metaphor in judgment experiments in cognitive linguistics. The Court employs metaphors conceptually coherent with those used in their cited precedent, in their representation of the successful pleadings within their judgments and insists (implicitly) on different metaphors in dissent. This paper argues that the use of congruent metaphors may be indicative of metaphor as a contributing factor in how judges reason. In the least, it is a significantly understudied phenomenon and this paper provides evidence for the salience of its approach for understanding judicial reasoning.