Université de Montréal - Thèse sous forme numérique

22judgments belong to the branch of public law which is, however, organized differentlyin the two legal systems.Judgments are the final decision in a legal dispute which determines ―winnersand losers‖ (Songer 2008: 78). They are written not only for the benefit of the partiesinvolved in the case, but also for the benefit of legal profession, for the benefit of otherjudges and for the benefit of appellate Courts. In some jurisdictions (e.g. Canada),judgments may set a precedent which is always binding on lower courts. In all cases,they are written by judges working in tribunals or courts. For this reason, judgments asa legal genre are intimately related to the role of courts and, by implication, to the roleof judges which is that of providing arbitration of particular disputes. According to theCanadian expert Gall (2004: 209):[t]he role of our courts is to provide a fair and just resolution of the variousproblems and conflicts that are brought before them. The attainment of justice,through the instrumentality of fair and impartial proceedings, defines theessential nature of the function of our system of courts in Canada. [...]Essentially, that process is an exercise in the search for truth. Upon thediscovery of the truth, through an application of our rules of procedure and rulesof evidence, the courts then exercise a decision-making jurisdiction, after whichthe appropriate disposition is made. [...] our system of judicial decision-makingis based on the assumption that the search for truth is best conducted in thecontext of an adversarial system.In contrast, in Portugal, the judicial decision-making system is based on theassumption that the search for truth is best conducted in the context of an inquisitorialsystem. While in the adversarial system, two or more opposing parties gather evidenceand present the evidence as well as their arguments to a judge or jury, in theinquisitorial system the judge is responsible for supervising the gathering of theevidence necessary to resolve the case by steering the search for evidence andquestioning the witnesses, including the respondent or defendant.