LAW AND LOGICS

Currently addressing issues of definitions, I keep reading that an arbitral award (i.e. a private judicial decision) is to be qualified as such when the decision has res judicata effect (that is, for non lawyers, that the decision binds the parties and the judge once made). This would help to define them from procedural orders, which don't.

Please be logical!

How can we logically decide over a characterization according to its effect? Res judicata is a legal effect of some decisions, that means that law attaches a special effect to some special decisions. Law is not part of the natural sciences, we cannot observe the effect, we have to infer it from what is known. Characterization, therefore, cannot be done according to its legal effect, but taking into account other factors, those that can be observed. Unless... Unless we are aiming at having such an effect, and going backwards towards the way we have to address the facts. But even there, it shouldn't come in the demonstration, only in its finding.

Those of you reading french can have a useful glance at :

• Eisenmann (Charles). "Juridiction et logique (selon les données du droit français)", in Mélanges dédiés à Gabriel Marty, Toulouse, Université des sciences sociales, 1978, p. 477-506

By the way, did you know that "definition" comes from the same latin root as "final", because defining was the outcome of a debate, and not its starting point? Interesting etymological advice, isn't it?