Université de Montréal - Thèse sous forme numérique

1754.1.4.1. FunctionPortuguese and Canadian judgments serve two similar functions. Firstly, they are decisionsin a legal dispute argued and settled in the highest court of the countries. As decisions, theyare written for the benefit of the parties involved in the case and are even said to exert apersuasive authority (Slaughter 2004). Secondly, judgments constitute a source ofinformation available in a given (digital) library for the community of experts and thereforehave the same communicative purpose, which is the most privileged criterion for theidentification of genres according to Bhatia (1993).4.1.4.2. Institutional contextThe STJ and the SCC are the highest instance courts of the Portuguese and Canadianjudiciary systems. Both institutions hear appeals on civil and criminal matters and appealsof the decisions made by the lower instance courts. However, there are also somecharacteristics that set them apart. Firstly, the STJ can try crimes committed by thePresident of the Republic, the President of the Assembly of the Republic and the Prime-Minister for crimes committed during the exercise of their Office. The SCC does not trysimilar cases. Secondly, both courts harmonize rulings by setting uniform jurisprudence,but they do this differently because the Portuguese and Canadian systems have differentformal sources of law. Thirdly, the Supreme Court of Canada grants permission to only 40-75 litigants each year, whereas the Supreme Court of Portugal does not impose thatrestriction. This explains the striking imbalance concerning the number and dates of textsincluded in each subcorpus: whereas about 120 judgments are produced by the STJ permonth, only 40-75 judgments are produced by the SCC per year.4.1.4.3. ExpertsThe authors of the texts in the comparable corpus correspond to judges who work in a givenlegal system based on theories and on conventional procedures. Their place and role in the