Thank you Jelle Flo for alerting us to the succinct Belgian Supreme Court ruling of 21 November 2018. A judge had published a scholarly piece on an issue of law, in tempore non suspecto, expressing a point of view which the Advocate General at the Court (here effectively acting as an amicus curiae) in a later specific case, agrees with.
The judiciary does publish regularly-ish. As do solicitors and barristers. For those of us who teach as well as practice, this at most leads to interesting times when opposing counsel or the bench points out a scholarly piece seemingly expressing a different point of view than our submissions; ordinarily, things are distinguishable…
For the judiciary, the Supreme Court sees no issue as long as the piece meets with scientific standards: ‘Le fait qu’un juge ait adopté un point de vue sur une question juridique dans une publication scientifique n’implique pas qu’il ne dispose plus de l’impartialité requise pour connaître d’un litige abordant ce sujet, pourvu qu’il ait développé sa pensée dans le respect des règles de la science du droit.’
The Court does not express guidance on what such standard might be – peer review perhaps comes to mind.
Geert.
gavc law - geert van calster 