ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an analytical account of the concept of justification in terms of justificandum, justificatory premises, and justificatory reasoning. One approach to clarifying the nature of interpretation in law is to consider it in the setting of legal reasoning treated as a for of justificatory reasoning. The chapter stresses the importance of justification as a legal requirement; that is, it stresses the significance of the statutory or conventional legal requirements for the statement by decision-makers of reasons for their decisions. It considers possible typologies of interpretative arguments, or of the 'directives of interpretation' which can be constructed in respect of the argument types. The chapter describes that problems of legal interpretation characteristically involve conflicts between arguments of different types, where the doubt giving rise to interpretative discussion is due to the supportability of more than one interpretation by prima facie good arguments.
