- to ensure that substantial justice was done.
- to provide a judicial mechanism for the progressive development of the law in the common law tradition. It is concerned with articulating and applying constitutional principles, authoritative interpretation of statutes, and the formulation of policy.
- to ensure uniform administration of justice throughout the jurisdiction.
Know your audience
The writer of a published opinion must always be aware of the audience for whom he or she writes. Knowing who you audience is will play a great role on how you approach the purpose of an opinion.
Examples of audiences are:
- Posterity
- The bar.
- Future judges
- legislature- to show that new legislation is needed to clean up the common law mess in the general area
- law students
- the intelligent citizen
- self- to satisfy yourself that the decision is right
Better opinion writers understand that they write for distinct primary and secondary categories of readers and target the tenor of their opinions accordingly.
Three ‘Cs’
Neil McCormick, Professor Emeritus of Public Law at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, discusses the duty of an opinion writer in terms of the ‘three Cs.’ Consequence, Consistency and Coherence.
To consider consequence, the opinion writer must keep in mind that the case holding not only applies to the present case, but will apply also to future circumstances that incorporate identical or similar facts.
The opinion must also be consistent with valid and binding legal precepts of the legal system.
The opinion must be coherent with an intelligible value or policy and not measured by a random set of norms.