Legal Argumentation, Evidentiary Reasoning and Administration of Justice in the Latin American Context

SW 14 Legal Argumentation, Evidentiary Reasoning and Administration of Justice in the Latin American Context.

Convenor: David Quintero Fuentes – Johann Benfeld Escobar

Contact: david.quintero@pucv.cl ; johann.benfeld@pucv.cl

Language: English and Spanish.

This special workshop aims to bring together researchers devoted to the study of legal argumentation, evidential reasoning, and their impact on the administration of justice in Latin America. Its main objective is to create a space for theoretical and empirical discussion that makes it possible to understand how judicial decisions are constructed, reviewed, and legitimised in systems characterised by high levels of social inequality, judicial workload overload, normative pluralism, and ongoing processes of institutional reform.

In recent decades, developments in the theory of legal argumentation and the theory of evidence have had a remarkable impact on global jurisprudential reflection. However, studies on Latin America show that the reception of these theories is mediated by specific structural conditions: incomplete democratic transitions,  gaps in access to justice, procedural systems undergoing permanent reform, strongly formalistic legal cultures and, at the same time, expansive trends toward neoconstitutionalism and conventionality control. In this context, the question of how arguments are made and evidence is assessed in Latin American courts is not merely a technical problem, but a matter of the political philosophy of law and of democratic legitimacy.

The workshop aims, first, to critically examine normative models of argumentation and proof (for example, models of “sana crítica”, standards of proof, theories of internal and external justification, the logic of facts, Bayesian and structuralist models) in light of concrete judicial practices in the region. Second, it seeks to explore how institutional and cultural factors—such as the organisation of the judiciary, the training of judges and litigants, media pressure, inequality of resources between the parties, or the influence of international human rights standards—shape the way in which factual narratives are constructed and normative premises are selected in judicial decisions.

The workshop is structured around the following thematic axes (non-exhaustive):

1. Models of legal argumentation and their reception in Latin America: uses, adaptations, and resistance to contemporary theories of argumentation in constitutional courts, supreme courts, and lower courts.
2. Evidential reasoning and standards of proof: analysis of doctrines and practices concerning the evaluation of evidence, the burden of proof, maxims of experience, indicia, scientific and expert evidence, with particular attention to criminal cases, gender-based violence, corruption, and human rights violations.
3. Factual narratives, truth, and democratic legitimacy: construction of evidential accounts, tensions between procedural truth and historical truth, and their impact on citizens’ trust in the justice system.
4. Justice, inequality, and vulnerability: how conditions of poverty, structural discrimination, and power asymmetries are reflected in the kinds of arguments considered relevant, in the credibility accorded to the parties, and in the distribution of evidential risks.
5. Institutional transformations and training of legal practitioners: critical assessment of procedural reforms and judicial training programmes that seek to incorporate skills in argumentation and evidential reasoning; analysis of best practices, failures, and remaining challenges.

In this way, the workshop seeks to show that reflection on legal argumentation and evidential reasoning, far from being a purely technical discussion, constitutes a privileged avenue for thinking about justice, democracy, and rights in Latin America today.

“Argumentación jurídica, razonamiento probatorio y administración de justicia en el contexto latinoamericano”

Este workshop especial propone reunir a investigadoras e investigadores dedicados al estudio de la argumentación jurídica, el razonamiento probatorio y su impacto en la administración de justicia en América Latina. El objetivo principal es articular un espacio de discusión teórica y empírica que permita comprender cómo se construyen, controlan y legitiman las decisiones jurisdiccionales en sistemas caracterizados por altos niveles de desigualdad social, sobrecarga de trabajo judicial, pluralismo normativo y procesos de reforma institucional en curso.