An Examination of What Judges Consider as "Legal Justice"

2022 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K14358
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Basic Section 10010:Social psychology-related
• Research Institution: Osaka University
• Principal Investigator: Watamura Eiichiro 大阪大学, 大学院人間科学研究科, 准教授 (50732989)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-04-01 – 2023-03-31
• Keywords: 裁判官 / 裁判員（一般市民） / 量刑 / 正当化 / 違い / 応報

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In modern society, which has a judicial system, "punishment for crime" does not consist only of universal and simple justice, but also pursues "higher" justice called "legal justice" at the same time. In this study, we focus on the professional judges who are at the front line of this pursuit, and clarify the "legal justice" that they are aware of and think about precisely because of their assigned role as judges. For this purpose, we conducted an experiment in which judges and the general public were compared in their judgments on the same case. The results of a series of studies showed that there were differences between the two groups in various aspects, such as the amount of punishment and justification. Furthermore, this study succeeded in developing a new scale to measure justification.

Free Research Field

社会心理学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究の意義には（１）正義の複層性の解明に加え、（２）裁判をテーマにした学術的研究において職業裁判官を扱った研究が圧倒的に少ないという現状を打破するという意義があった。申請者が調べた限り、2000年以降から研究開始時までに行われた研究はWeb of Science上では37件に留まり、そのほとんどは特定の裁判にフォーカスした事例研究であった。研究数の少なさゆえ、裁判官の正義が一般市民の正義と何がどう違うのか？といった問いに対して、実証的データに裏付けされた考察をすることが長らくできないままでいた。本研究では職業裁判官と一般市民を比較することで、両者の違いのいくつかを示すことができた。