Political Science - Term Paper Example

term “juridification” has arisen as a means of describing the practice whereby prior determination of precedence leads the judiciary in a direction that they would otherwise not follow. Although the term itself seems to imply a type of negative connotation; this should not be understood to be the case in all cases. Rather juridification is merely the outgrowth of an established, historically contiguous and stable judiciary that can have the advantage upon drawing upon a wealth of precedent and prior determinations in order to form an opinion.

Likewise, the term itself can also be viewed in a negative connotation as the outgrowth and development of law oftentimes leads down a tightly confined path whereby the judiciary is predisposed to determinations that are seemingly unchangeable and non-elastic with the needs of society; merely based on prior precedent that has stood the test of time. As such, this brief essay will consider this term as well as attempt to determine whether the outgrowth and development of law during the course of the 20th century has been a net positive or a net negative for the judiciary and the public.

As a function of this, the specific case Liebeck v. McDonalds Restaurants will be analyzed. Although juridification can have a positive effect on creating a channeling effect for precedence to determine the means by which certain cases should be decided; thereby making the job of the judiciary somewhat simpler, the downside to this is the fact that the full original intent of the law cannot be applied in such a way as to create a clear definition of intent based upon a blank slate of logic and information associated with a particular case.

As a result, the continuing outpouring of case law, determinations, and judgments throughout the history of the judiciary in this country has served to create a highly complex and storied representation of precedent that only helps to further define and hedge in the understanding of juridification