Judicial Reasoning and Individualised Risk in Pre-Trial Detention: A Transnational Standard of Justification

Abstract

This article examines what judicial reasons must establish before reasonable suspicion and a legally recognised ground can justify pre-trial detention. It argues that detention of a person presumed innocent requires a cumulative sequence connecting the evidential basis of suspicion, an independently justified risk, the insufficiency of less intrusive alternatives, and temporal proportionality. The method is a doctrinal and normative reconstruction of selected European, Inter-American and United Nations standards, informed by scholarship on proof, judicial reasoning and risk assessment. The comparison concerns transnational frameworks rather than a systematic comparison of domestic legal systems. The article proposes an Individualised Risk-Justification Standard, organised as a Four Justificatory Bridges Model. Its contribution is the integration and operationalisation of established requirements, not the discovery of those requirements or a new evidentiary threshold. The model distinguishes procedural from preventive risks, disciplines generalisations through case-specific scrutiny, and separates the justification of initial custody from its continued duration. Selected judgments and a hypothetical application illustrate its use as a framework for drafting and reviewing detention decisions. Defective reasoning is assessed as a failure of justification, with remedial implications that remain sensitive to the applicable legal system.