Style
There is a key stylistic difference between the U.S. on the one hand, and the UK and other common law countries on the other. In the U.S., the disposition of an appeal in a majority opinion is usually drafted in the present tense, so that the disposition is itself a performative utterance. That is, a U.S. court will say that "we affirm (or reverse)" the lower court's decision, or, "the decision of the is hereby affirmed (or reversed)." By saying so, the court actually does so.
In the UK and many other common law countries, the disposition in a majority opinion is phrased in the future tense. For example, the Justices of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom end a majority opinion by stating that "I would dismiss the appeal" or "I would allow the appeal," while the Justices of the High Court of Australia end a majority opinion by stating that "the appeal should be dismissed" or "the appeal should be allowed." This makes little sense from the American perspective, since the appeal has already occurred.
American dissenting and concurring opinions are sometimes partially drafted in the future tense, since they are speaking in terms of hypothetical situations that will not actually occur, as opposed to what the majority is actually doing in its opinion. However, even dissenting opinions may end in a present tense performative utterance, which is usually some variation on the phrase "I respectfully dissent."
Read more about this topic: Majority Opinion
Famous quotes containing the word style:
“The history of all Magazines shows plainly that those which have attained celebrity were indebted for it to articles similar in natureto Berenice—although, I grant you, far superior in style and execution. I say similar in nature. You ask me in what does this nature consist? In the ludicrous heightened into the grotesque: the fearful coloured into the horrible: the witty exaggerated into the burlesque: the singular wrought out into the strange and mystical.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)
“Where there is no style, there is in effect no point of view. There is, essentially, no anger, no conviction, no self. Style is opinion, hung washing, the calibre of a bullet, teething beads.... One’s style holds one, thankfully, at bay from the enemies of it but not from the stupid crucifixions by those who must willfully misunderstand it.”
—Alexander Theroux (b. 1940)
“Hemingway was a prisoner of his style. No one can talk like the characters in Hemingway except the characters in Hemingway. His style in the wildest sense finally killed him.”
—William Burroughs (b. 1914)