As part of its tradition of welcoming incoming students, the Master of Laws (MIH) and Master in Laws (LLM) programs regularly organize a public lecture for new students. This edition was held on Friday, October 2, 2020, at 2:00 p.m. WIB, featuring Prof. Dr. Mr. Adriaan W. Bedner, Head of the Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Government, and Society at Leiden University, as the speaker. He was accompanied by moderator Rikardo Simarmata, S.H., a lecturer at the UGM Faculty of Law. Though originally intended for new MIH and LLM students, lecturers, and the Graduate Law Students' Association (KMMIH) via Zoom, the strong public enthusiasm prompted the event to also be live-streamed on the UGM Faculty of Law's Knowledge Channel (Kanal Pengetahuan Hukum) on YouTube.
On this occasion, Prof. Adriaan explained that legal reasoning is the intellectual process of producing rational, consistent, systematic, and harmonious solutions in the resolution of legal cases or legal systems. He went on to discuss in greater depth what the intellectual process entails, the sources of law, methods of legal interpretation, the objectives of the legal system, the relationship between legal reasoning and the rule of law, and the applications of legal reasoning, among many other related matters.
"Legal reasoning is the mental process of gathering materials, which are then interpreted using available methods of interpretation -- where interpretation itself is not the objective of the law."
This was how Rikardo Simarmata, S.H., summarized the concept.
The public lecture ran for 120 minutes and was attended by more than 150 participants via Zoom and over 700 viewers watching the live stream on the UGM Faculty of Law's Knowledge Channel. Three Q&A sessions were held, with three questioners given the floor in each session.
"Using a variety of methods does not amount to abandoning legal certainty -- if it is embedded in jurisprudence, doctrine, discussion, and dialogue, the process continues and ultimately legal certainty will be better served than under a legistic system that cannot resolve all cases using overly general legal rules." This was Prof. Adriaan's closing reflection.
