Collective Choice and Dissenting Opinions in Multimember Courts - Elements for Assessing Judicial Reasoning in Courts of Constitutional Decision Making in South America

Abstract

Collegial decisions are exposed to peculiarities that individual judges do not face, such as deliberations, leading judges as case managers, group thinking, and peer effects, among others. Nevertheless, when analyzing judicial outcomes of Constitutional Courts, most of the legal community in South America does not consider those features. In this paper, we describe some of them and focus on dissents as a variable that provides fertile ground for assessing the reasoning of the tribunals. The scope of the work is limited to a descriptive and normative sphere, and uses a qualitative methodology. 3