Redundancy of Redundancy in Justifications of Verdicts of Polish The Constitutional Tribuna

Abstract

The results of an empirical study of 150 justifications of verdicts of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal (CT) are discussed. CT justifies its decisions mostly on authoritative references to previous decisions and other doxa- type arguments. It thus does not convince the audience of a decision's validity, but rather documents it. Further, the methodology changes depending on features of the case. The results are analysed using a conceptual framework of sociological systems theory. It is shown that CT's justification methodology ignores the redundancy (excess of references and dependencies) of the legal system, finding redundancy redundant. This is a risky strategy of decision- making, enabling political influence.