By Oghenemaro Festus Emiri
INTRODUCTION
After a long period of thinking and acting law as an autonomous discipline, the legal community is beginning to recognize that other disciplines, particularly the social sciences and humanities can provide insights and approaches that can enrich our understanding of law and the legal system. One of the sciences particularly significant in this respect is cognitive science. This paper considers why a subset of the legal profession-judges, should be interested in cognitive science and the insight it can give them in opinion writing, the because opinion writing constitute their primary judicial function. Practice lawyers, who similarly, write briefs can benefit from the contribution of cognitive science to the art of writing, especially as it shows how the intersection between thinking and writing can aid them write better, brighter, and tighter briefs. This notwithstanding, this paper’s main objective is targeted at how the recognition of cognitive science can help judges improve the writing of ethical opinions and perhaps help them to be more introspective in writing opinions.
No question about it. Judges, by their oath, are obligated to think (i.e., reason) and write well. It is a commitment that will not change. By nature of the work they do, they are expected to write opinions, whether in the form of rulings (including bench ruling), and judgments.