Reflections on competence and the decision-making power of the future judges Spanish Judicial School

Abstract

The author sets a complete development of the decision making competence of judges (definition, contents, timing and assessment). The analysis goes from the Program of the Spanish Judicial School, a paper of competences definition of CEJFE (Generalitat of Catalunya: Legal Studies and Specialized Training Centre) and a work of the Trainers’ College of the Judicial School about professional competences. The author applies a methodology to fix competences referring learning styles (based in the Kolb’s Experiential learning theory) and “ecological” working context, as a good reference to define the making decisions processes. He tries to match the defined competences by the Judicial School (technical, relational, functional, analytical and personal competences) with the steps of learning, assimilating these steps with the making decisions steps.