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An analysis of a broad sample of Dutch judicial and semi-judicial decisions shows similar structures as the ones Bhatia and Mazzi found before. The question is posed what explains this seemingly unchangeable judicial format. From a perspective of argumentative and communicative efficacy and comprehensibility, the format is certainly not the optimal choice. The explanation is that the format is a sign of an ideology. The format suggests an objectivity of the decision taken. This is actually a myth. This makes a decision to change the format an ideological one.

A pragma-dialectical analysis departs from an idealized model of a well-organized, fully explicit argumentative discussion. Some argumentative activity types come closer to this ideal than others. It is useful and important to apply the ideal model to reconstruct relatively well-organized and explicit practices as is done for example in argumentation in legal proceedings. But it is great fun to explore what happens when you confront the seemingly anarchistic and chaotic practices of Internet political forum discussions with such a model, at least when you do this with the subtlety and intelligence of Marcin Lewinski. He reports his findings in a wellwritten, very interesting study. The first four chapters of this doctoral dissertation are somewhat perfunctory, working towards an introduction of the concepts of a critical discussion (shared knowledge for the readers of this journal), strategic maneuvering (a more recent, but also well-known concept) and argumentative activity type in the pragma-dialectical theory (relatively new). ‘‘[B]y manoeuvring strategically arguers try to make an advantageous use of the many options open to them at various junctures of a reasonable dialectical discussion’’ (p. 55). Van Eemeren & Houtlosser characterize argumentative activity types as ‘‘conventionalized entities that can be distinguished by ‘external’ empirical observations of the communicative practices in the various domains [...] of discourse’’. Lewinski states that ‘‘pragma-dialectical activity types are empirically recognisable types of communicative practices approached from the perspective of a normative model’’ (p. 60). Chapter 5 characterizes Internet discussion forums as a technology for informal political deliberation. On the basis of a technological and institutional analysis of

What I sought to demonstrate was that the relations between (a) how a case fits into the system, (b) what the main structure of the justification is, and (c) whether discretionary authority is used, are not as simple as suggested in the literature. What we saw is that if the justification for a decision in a particular case is a practical syllogism with an established legal rule as its major premiss, there are many possibilities: (a) the case did or did not raise a conflict for the judge between his intuitions about reasonableness and his interpretation of the legal system; (b) the case had or had not a clear solution in conformity with the legal system; (c) the case was or was not decided according to what the system seemed to prescribe. Therefore, the main structure of a justification cannot inform us about questions as: Did the case fit into the system? Is discretionary authority used? The opposition between hard cases and clear cases is much too complex to be of any use to clarify such issues.