Judicial Flexibility and the Crisis of the Faculty of Judgment: Toward a Rhizomatic Theory of Adjudication

Abstract

This article proposes a rhizomatic theory of adjudication as a contribution to the debate on judicial flexibility and access to justice. Drawing on the thought of Deleuze and Guattari, and in dialogue with Castoriadis’s theory of institutions and Jacques Poulain’s notion of the law of truth, it argues that the normative rigidity characteristic of hierarchically structured legal systems neutralizes the faculty of judgment of judges and legal subjects alike, thereby hindering responses that are attentive to the singularity of conflicts. From a qualitative, theoretical-critical, and jurisprudential approach, the article examines how an understanding of society under the principle of self-alteration makes it possible to rethink adjudication beyond coherence with a pre-established normative system. Within this framework, it advances the figure of the rhizomatic judge as an instituting agent who decides according to a decentralized, non-linear, and multiple logic. The argument is developed through an analysis of two Colombian judicial decisions and a critical reflection on the use of language models in legal practice. It concludes that self-referential theories of decision-making, including certain contemporary forms of algorithmic assistance, tend to rigidify judgment, undermine judicial flexibility, and affect access to justice insofar as they prevent the recognition of the historicity, complexity, and spatiality of social relations.