The concept of reasonableness has two related meanings in

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the ar ...

and

political theory Political philosophy studies the theoretical and conceptual foundations of politics. It examines the nature, scope, and legitimacy of political institutions, such as states. This field investigates different forms of government, ranging from d ...

: # As a legal norm, it is used "for the assessment of such matters as actions, decisions, and persons, rules and institutions, ndalso arguments and judgments." # As a regulative idea, it "requires... that all factors that might be relevant in answering a practical question be considered and... that they be assembled in a correct relation to each other in order to justify judgement" ''Reasonableness'' should not be conflated with ''

rationality Rationality is the quality of being guided by or based on reason. In this regard, a person acts rationally if they have a good reason for what they do, or a belief is rational if it is based on strong evidence. This quality can apply to an ab ...

''.

Political theory

Reasonableness has been discussed by political thinkers such as

John Rawls John Bordley Rawls (; February 21, 1921 – November 24, 2002) was an American moral philosophy, moral, legal philosophy, legal and Political philosophy, political philosopher in the Modern liberalism in the United States, modern liberal tradit ...

(in his 1993 '' Political Liberalism''), T. M. Scanlon, Brian Barry and Georg Henrik von Wright.

Law

The notion of "reasonableness" is omnipresent in European law, and has also affected " international treaties and general customs". Examples of its use can be found in canon and

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

law, suggesting roots going back to

Ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome is the Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of Rome, founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, collapse of the Western Roman Em ...

Standards and doctrines

Standards and doctrines requiring reasonableness include: *Reasonability * Reasonable accommodation * Reasonable actThomas Johnson Michie. "Reasonable-Reasonably". Garland and McGehee (eds). The American and English Encyclopaedia of Law. Second Edition. Edward Thompson Company. 1903. Volume 23. Page
946
and 947 * Reasonable appearance of danger * Reasonable care * Reasonable cause or reasonable and probable causeWood Renton and Robertson (eds). Encyclopaedia of the Laws of England. 2nd Edition. 1908. vol 12
p 378
* Reasonable and competent support * Reasonable creature * Reasonable danger * Reasonable diligence * Reasonable doubt * Reasonable expectation ( Legitimate expectation is sometimes called reasonable expectation.) * Reasonable facilities * Reasonable fitness * Reasonable mind * Reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing *

Reasonable person In law, a reasonable person or reasonable man is a hypothetical person whose character and care conduct, under any ''common set of facts,'' is decided through reasoning of good practice or policy. It is a legal fiction crafted by the courts an ...

(or reasonable man) * Reasonable person model * Reasonable portion * Reasonable possibility * Reasonably practicable * Reasonable and probable damage * Reasonable and probable grounds * Reasonable provocation * Reasonable prudence * Reasonable question * Reasonable rates * Reasonable regulation * Reasonable right of way * Reasonable skill * Reasonable suspicion * Reasonable time * Reasonable use * Reasonable wear and tear excepted * Subjective and objective standard of reasonableness

Constitutional and administrative law

In constitutional and administrative

, reasonableness is a lens through which

court A court is an institution, often a government entity, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between Party (law), parties and Administration of justice, administer justice in Civil law (common law), civil, Criminal law, criminal, an ...

s examine the

constitutionality In constitutional law, constitutionality is said to be the condition of acting in accordance with an applicable constitution; "Webster On Line" the status of a law, a procedure, or an act's accordance with the laws or set forth in the applic ...

or lawfulness of

legislation Legislation is the process or result of enrolling, enacting, or promulgating laws by a legislature, parliament, or analogous governing body. Before an item of legislation becomes law it may be known as a bill, and may be broadly referred ...

and

regulation Regulation is the management of complex systems according to a set of rules and trends. In systems theory, these types of rules exist in various fields of biology and society, but the term has slightly different meanings according to context. Fo ...

. According to Paul Craig, it is "concerned with review of the weight and balance accorded by the primary decision-maker to factors that have been or can be deemed relevant in pursuit of a prima facie allowable purpose".

Common law

Examples of reasonableness standards in common law jurisdictions include: * Reasonableness ''simpliciter'' and patent unreasonableness (repealed in 2008) in

Canadian law The legal system of Canada is pluralist: its foundations lie in the English common law system (inherited from its period as a colony of the British Empire), the French civil law system (inherited from its French Empire past), and Indigenous ...

* Wednesbury unreasonableness in

English law English law is the common law list of national legal systems, legal system of England and Wales, comprising mainly English criminal law, criminal law and Civil law (common law), civil law, each branch having its own Courts of England and Wales, ...

* Wednesbury unreasonableness in Singaporean law

Mixed jurisdictions

* Reasonableness

cause Causality is an influence by which one event, process, state, or object (''a'' ''cause'') contributes to the production of another event, process, state, or object (an ''effect'') where the cause is at least partly responsible for the effect, ...

in Israeli law ( עילת הסבירות) * Reasonableness in South African administrative law

Reasonability

Reasonability is a

legal Law is a set of rules that are created and are law enforcement, enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a Socia ...

term. The scale of reasonability represents a quintessential element of modern judicial systems and is particularly important in the context of international disputes and conflicts of

s issues. The concept is founded on the notion that all parties should be held to a reasonable standard of conduct and has become embedded in a number of international conventions such as the

UNIDROIT UNIDROIT (formally, the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law; French: ''Institut international pour l'unification du droit privé'') is an intergovernmental organization whose objective is to harmonize private internati ...

principles and the CISG. The concept of reasonability is applicable to

Roman law Roman law is the law, legal system of ancient Rome, including the legal developments spanning over a thousand years of jurisprudence, from the Twelve Tables (), to the (AD 529) ordered by Eastern Roman emperor Justinian I. Roman law also den ...

.Frier, "Case 98: Reasonability", ''A Casebook on the Roman Law of Contracts'', OUP, 2021
p 223
María José Falcón y Tella, ''Case Law in Roman, Anglosaxon and Continental Law'', 2011, p
138
to 140.

Political theory

Law

Standards and doctrines

Constitutional and administrative law

Common law

Mixed jurisdictions

Reasonability

See also

References

Further reading

Books

Articles