Witness Statements: What, how, and how much to incorporate into rulings?

Abstract

This article answers what, how, and how much of the witnesses’ statements in evidentiary hearings should be incorporated into rulings. To resolve this question it analyzes the value of witness statements according to their contribution to the justification of judicial decisions, without forgetting that rulings are texts with self-explanatory pretensions and that their production costs determine, to an important extent, what should be a part of them. This paper proposes a typology of anomalies that sentences may incur when reconstructing or reproducing witness statements. It concludes that the preferred criteria for deciding what, how, and how much to incorporate witness statements in sentences are: i) relevance, ii) fidelity and clarity, and iii) relevance. At the same time, some indications are given as to how to satisfy these requirements.