Abstract
The paper offers an analytic and conceptual refinement of the concept of obiter dictum, understanding it in a broad and non-essentialist sense, and a critical reflection on its circumstances of legitimacy, with a view to identifying abusive judicial pronouncements, which perform speech acts capable of producing unwanted systemic effects or violation to the legal order. In the end, it offers a typology of abusive obiter dicta and a set of examples of each of the classes of such pronouncements.
Obiter dictum; concept; legitimacy; judicial obligations; speech acts