On The Application Of Analogical Reasoning In Guiding Case System

Analogical reasoning is an important reasoning method. There has been preliminary researches on it in ancient China and the West. The implementation of the analogical reasoning is valuable to ’treat like cases alike’, constraint of discretionary power and conservation of judicial resources. In order to make Case Guiding System work well, the analogical reasoning should be extended to current judicial practice in China. When there is a legal loophole, hard case etc. in the judicial practice, the judge should consider whether to seek the aid of guiding cases. Seek for guiding cases via case indexing, and then compare the two cases on basic attributes. If there are similarities between two cases, the applicable law rules can be used in the unsolved case. One the other hand, to remedy analogical reasoning defects, distinguishing techniques should be used, eliminating inappropriate guiding cases. In the case of using guiding cases in criminal trail, there would not be contradict between implementation of analogical reasoning and the legally prescribed punishment principle, which is resulted from code law and case guiding system in China.