Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: from legitimacy to leadership / Nick Huls -- Transforming deliberations / Mitchel de S.-O-l'E. Lasser -- What do we lack? / Ugo Mattei -- A socio-legal analysis of the legitimacy of highest courts / Fred Bruinsma -- Comparing judicial reasoning on a formalism/policy axis : problematizing and contextualizing 'formalism' in Mitchel Lasser's Judicial deliberations / Jacco Bomhoff -- 'In good faith' : re-imagining comparative law discourse / Bram Goetschalckx -- Formal and substantial justification in legal decisions : some critical questions from an argumentative perspective / Harm Kloosterhuis -- Formal and informal determinative factors in the legitimacy of judicial decisions : the point of view of the French Court of Cassation / Guy Canivet -- But Pasteur was French : comments on Mitchel Lasser's 'The European pasteurization of French law' / Koen Lemmens -- Filtering applications, number of judgments delivered and judicial discourse by supreme courts : some thoughts based on the French example / Andrea Pinna -- A commentary on Lasser's Analysis from the Belgian Court of Cassation's perspective / Luc Huybrechts -- Legitimacy and democracy through adjudication : comparative reflections on the argumentative practice of the French and Belgian Cour de cassation / Maurice Adams and Fernand Tanghe -- Judicial reasoning and legitimacy of the Dutch Supreme Court / Willibrord J.M. Davids -- The legitimacy of the decisions of the Dutch Supreme Court in criminal cases / Geert Corstens -- The perspective of the annotator : some observations about the organisation and format of the judgments and decisions of the criminal division of the Supreme Court of the Netherlands, and the role of the annotator / Paul Mevis -- The perspective of a cassation attorney in criminal cases / Rob Baumgardt -- Legitimacy of the ruling : a formal approach / Carel Smith -- Courts in a quest for legitimacy : a comparative approach / Marc A. Loth -- Another turn of the screw : an evaluation of Lasser's Judicial deliberations in the light of the practices of constitutional review in France, Germany and the United States / Elaine Mak -- From traditional judicial styles to Verdict Industries Inc. / Rob Jagtenberg and Annie de Roo -- A comparison between wrongful dismissal cases in the Netherlands and California : a quest for transparency of judicial decisions / E. Grace van Arkel -- The Dutch Supreme Court versus the lower courts : summary dismissal and the catalogue of viewpoints / Kees Loonstra and Jeroen Quist -- Functions of judicial opinion : a view from a post-Communist European state / Sinis̆a Rodin -- Judicial deliberations : the Strasbourg perspective / Lech Garlicki -- Judicial legitimacy in an internationalized world / Wilhelmina Thomassen -- Judicial deliberations in the European Court of Human Rights / Janneke Gerards / Legitimacy of European Court of Human Rights judgments : procedural aspects / Tom Barkhuysen and Michiel van Emmerik -- Judicial deliberations and human rights adjudication / Roel de Lange.

Judges from the French, Belgian and Dutch Cassation Courts reflect on the challenges that their Courts are facing.