Abstract
My main claim in this article is that lawyers should make less use of the hermeneutical method than they do. The reasons that I will adduce to support this claim are the following: law (tout court) is first and foremost an answer to the question of how to act and, more in particular, the question of which rules to enforce by collective means. As such, law does not coincide with positive law. Nevertheless, positive law determines the content of the law to a large extent. It does so for two reasons. The first reason is that positive law contributes to legal certainty and that legal certainty is very important for the question concerning which rules should be enforced by collective means. The second reason is that respect for positive law, which was created by democratic bodies, implies respect for democracy. However, positive law can only contribute to legal certainty if its application is predictable. If positive law can be interpreted in more than one way, its application will not be predictable. In that case, positive law is not relevant for the content of the law tout court. Theories about the interpretation of positive law (hermeneutical theories) are particularly relevant where positive law can be interpreted in different ways, that is where positive law is not relevant for the content of the law tout court. Therefore, hermeneutical theories are not relevant for the content of the law and lawyers should not waste their time on them. A similar argument can be given for the democratic legitimation of positive law.
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Notes
- 1.
At the end of the eleventh century, legal scholars in Bologna created a text-critical version of the Justinian Digest. This version was based on the comparison and interpretation of several sources (Wieacker 1967, p. 46).
- 2.
Stelmach and Brožek (2006, pp. 167–209).
- 3.
Von Savigny, System des heutigen Römischen Rechts, Bd 1 (1840), §33. Quoted after Röhl and Röhl (2008, p. 118).
- 4.
- 5.
Röhl and Röhl (2008, p. 116/7).
- 6.
- 7.
- 8.
- 9.
Aarnio (1987, pp. 77–107).
- 10.
Peczenik (2008, pp. 307–345).
- 11.
Dworkin (1986, p. 14).
- 12.
Dworkin (1978, pp. 105–123).
- 13.
In my book Foundations and Building Blocks of Law (Hage 2018), I even argue that strictly speaking not a single rule prescribes behaviour. Some rules create deontic facts, and these facts, not the rules on which they are based, prescribe.
- 14.
Cf. in this connection Fuller’s description of law as ‘the enterprise of subjecting human conduct to the governance of rules’ (Fuller 1963, pp. 46 and 96). The same suggestion is made by Hart, who characterised the rules that prescribe behaviour (rules of obligation) as ‘primary rules’ Hart (1994, p. 94).
- 15.
See Hart (1994, p. vi and chapter V).
- 16.
Dworkin (1986, chapters 3 and 7).
- 17.
Alexy (1994, p. 263).
- 18.
This is in agreement with Dworkin’s view that law is a matter of which supposed rights supply a justification for using or withholding the collective force of the state because they are included in or implied by actual political decisions of the past (Dworkin 1986, p. 97).
- 19.
From a Law and Economics perspective, this could be formulated in terms of the transaction costs for conflict resolution. These costs are sometimes higher than the difference between a favourable and an unfavourable outcome of the conflict. E.g. the costs of the lawyer are higher than the difference between winning and losing the case.
- 20.
The same holds for considerations based on democracy, which will be discussed later.
- 21.
Cf. Raz (1986, p. 70/1).
- 22.
- 23.
- 24.
Obviously, it is not excluded that these special forms of legal reasoning lead to substantively just law, but if they do, this is coincidental.
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Hage, J. (2019). The Limited Function of Hermeneutics in Law. In: Duarte, D., Moniz Lopes, P., Silva Sampaio, J. (eds) Legal Interpretation and Scientific Knowledge. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18671-5_1
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