ABSTRACT
Many authors who examine the phenomenon of judicial dissent present and weigh the different arguments that one can use for and against the publication of separate opinions. Dissent occurs in collective bodies such as a court panel. Legal doctrine is also among the beneficiaries of separate opinions. Dissenting opinions may exercise an important transformative function, and are usually discussed in the light of their impact on the legitimacy of the judiciary. The extent to which a legal system's judges adhere to a more traditional view of the judicial role can be measured through the practice of writing separately. While several Western European constitutional courts have not caught up with this trend yet, in East-Central Europe even those countries that were skeptical about the dissenting opinions later decided to open towards it. In this way, courts become part of a larger public discourse in which they participate actively through the individual opinions of particular judges.
