J-Law 2 — Reasoned Rulings Required

Judges must state the legal authority and reasons for every ruling and order. Rulings must rest on explicit statutes or precedent.

"Denied." One word, no statute, no case, no explanation — and a claim someone spent years of their life preparing is gone. Rulings of this kind are common, and every one of them represents an exercise of raw power dressed in a robe. Law, by definition, is reasoning that can be examined; a result that cannot be traced to any authority is indistinguishable from personal preference.

Due process has always meant, at minimum, that government must justify what it does to you. A reasons requirement transforms the entire character of judicial power. The judge who must name the statute compelling a result will discover, sometimes, that no such statute exists — and the ruling changes. The litigant who receives actual reasons can meaningfully seek correction, and the public can finally see whether its courts run on law or on mood. Arbitrary power cannot survive the simple obligation to explain itself, which is precisely why the obligation is resisted.

The requirement also exposes a category of ruling the current system hides completely: the order no legal authority supports at all. Litigants encounter these regularly — scheduling orders, dismissals, and denials that no one on the bench can tie to any rule when pressed. A judge forced to cite authority before ruling either finds the authority or loses the ruling, and either outcome is justice compared to what happens now.

The expected counterargument: requiring written reasons for every order would bury judges in paperwork and slow the courts. The premise collapses on inspection. A judge is already supposed to know the legal basis for a ruling before issuing it; stating that basis takes one paragraph and a citation. Any ruling whose reasons cannot be produced in a paragraph is a ruling whose reasons do not exist, and speed in issuing baseless orders is a defect rather than a virtue. Courts find unlimited time to demand exhaustive briefing from the parties. The efficiency objection asks litigants to spend hundreds of hours justifying their positions so that a judge can spend zero justifying the decision — an exchange no one would call efficient if the roles were reversed.