Retorische vragen van de rechter als wrakingsgrond

The judge’s rhetorical questions as ground of objection: an argumentation-analytical model A complaint about the lack of impartiality of a judge may be filed on the grounds of the judge’s verbal behaviour. Such a complaint may result in the disqualification of the judge. In this paper, criticism on the verbal behaviour of the judge will be discussed from an argumentative perspective. From this perspective, the disqualification procedure may be considered a sub-discussion that relates to the initial legal dispute. I will examine what role complaints about the verbal behaviour of the judge can play in the argumentation of a party who seeks the judge’s disqualification. Therefore, I will analyse the structuring of the argumentation underlying disqualification requests that are based on complaints about the verbal behaviour of the judge. After that I will concentrate on complaints that concern the judge’s use of rhetorical questions. How these complaints about rhetorical questions may be evaluated will be examined and illustrated by an argumentative analysis of a decision by a disqualification panel.