Adjudication and Judicial Discretion

This chapter presents different conceptions of adjudication and judicial discretion in the tradition of Jewish law. It consists of three parts. The first part is a theoretical introduction to the concept of adjudication and the problem of judicial discretion in modern scholarship. It discusses the court's power, its obligations, and the interrelations between the legislature and courts. It then analyzes the theoretical and practical problems of judicial discretion and introduces the main approaches to understanding it. The second part encompasses a broad selection of Jewish legal sources, from the Bible, rabbinic literature, and medieval and modern authorities, which represent different aspects and approaches to adjudication and discretion. The subsections of this part include the following: legislature and judges (the division of labor); the obligation to judge righteously; the obligation to judge truthfully; the power to exercise discretion; the power to deviate from the law; error in adjudication; and more. The third part of this chapter includes detailed discussions of each of the subsections of part two, interpreting the sources and analyzing them from a jurisprudential perspective.