A Theory of Legal Argumentation. The Theory of Rational Discourse as Theory of Legal Justification.
... Judges must make decisions based on fairness and justice, taking into account ethical principles (4,9,11,(19)(20)(21) and relevant factors such as scientific evidence, cost-effectiveness, indications and contraindications of therapeutics (15,18,22). The use of bioethics provides a valuable methodology for judges to ensure their decisions are legally sound and ethically appropriate (1,8,17,23,24). ...
... Particularly when faced with complex cases involving issues like the right to health, these principles and their connection to human rights become even more crucial. The idea of ethical principles has developed over time, where post-positivism reintroduced moral assessment into normative realms by linking law and ethics together (15,22,26). ...
... This involves analyzing legal statutes to uncover their underlying connotations and different elements (15,26,32). There are various interpretive methodologies available for this complex task (18,22,26,32). Interpreting the law requires using integrated and dynamic methods that consider each case's distinct characteristics. ...
The right to health is linked to life and human dignity. Among the instruments to make it effective, the phenomenon of health litigation has become prominent. In Brazil, courts are increasingly faced with the task of rendering verdicts concerning matters related to health. Nowadays, judges have to deal with issues about health policies, technology incorporations, drug supplies, human autonomy, genetics, and biotechnologies, among others. Lawsuit sentences are now to be built upon the resolution of ethical, legal and philosophical questions. Bioethics presents itself as an instrument and method to help solve legal cases involving the right to health. This paper intends to show that bioethics can be applied in verdicts of lawsuits regarding to right to health in Brazil. It highlights that bioethics can be considered a source of law due to its normative dimension, as well as a hermeneutic method. This essay also aims to show the role for bioethics to help interpret the law and solve hard cases within health law and the right to health. Lastly, it aims to justify the presence of bioethics as legal reasoning to be used by judges in the foundation of their verdicts in lawsuits involving the right to health.
... While legal theory has extensively studied legal argumentation (see Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1969;MacCormick, 1978;Alexy, 1989), a formal account of it has only been provided by the AI & Law research, which has profited from, and contributed to, the logical tools for argumentation made available within AI (for an overview, see Prakken and Sartor, 2015). In fact, AI & Law researchers have not only applied AI-based argumentation techniques to the law, but have also made innovative contributions to the development of formal models of argumentation. ...
... 6) is beyond the scope of this paper. Let us just remark that, while a vast literature exists on the concept of an explanation in philosophy (Achinstein, 1983;Pitt, 1988) legal theory has mainly focused on justification, taking this concept as central in the context of legal decision-making (Alexy, 1989;Peczenik, 1989). From the legal theory perspective, it may seem that explanations are a byproduct of justifications: the arguments justifying a decision, on the basis of facts and norms, also provide an explanation of the same decision. ...
... The adoption of argumentative model for the justificationexplanation of legal decisions was motivated by the fact that purely deductive approaches fail to capture key aspects of legal reasoning, such as conflicts between competing rules, the relation between rules and exceptions, the significance of factors, interpretive and case-based reasoning, and more generally, the dialectical and adversarial nature of legal interactions (Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1969;Alexy, 1989;Walton et al., 2008;Bongiovanni et al., 2018). ...
This article investigates the conceptual connection between argumentation and explanation in the law and provides a formal account of it. To do so, the methods used are conceptual analysis from legal theory and formal argumentation from AI. The contribution and results are twofold. On the one hand, we offer a critical reconstruction of the concept of legal argument, justification, and explanation of decision-making as it has been elaborated in legal theory and, above all, in AI and law. On the other hand, we propose some definitions of explanation in the context of formal legal argumentation, showing a connection between formal justification and explanation. We also investigate the notion of stable normative explanation developed elsewhere in Defeasible Logic and extend some complexity results. Our contribution is thus mainly conceptual, and it is meant to show how notions of explanation from literature on explainable AI and legal theory can be modeled in an argumentation framework with structured arguments.
... Developing Explainable-AI systems is thus more and more important in the law since 'transparency' and 'justification' of legal decision-making both require formalising normative explanations [1]. Normative explanation is a type of explanation where norms (in addition to factual information) are crucial: if reframed in the context of legal decision-making, this means to explain why a legal conclusion (such as an obligation) ought to be the case on the basis of certain norms (such as one prescribing to compensate for the damages for which we are liable) and facts (such as the fact that I causally contributed to cause a damage) [2,24]. In the context of judicial reasoning, the idea of normative explanation is now emerging in the literature (see [12,26,19,18]). ...
... Case (2). If A 1 s , . . . ...
... , A n s−1 ⇒ r s−1 Conc(A i s ), which in turn can fall within Case (1) or Case (2). Suppose, for example, that each A i s−1 falls within Case (2). Then, by construction of M D , there a world w s−1 such that for each Conc(A i s−1 ), w s−1 ∈ ||Conc(A i s−1 )|| and ||Conc(A i s )|| ∈ N (w s−1 ). ...
This paper examines how a notion of stable explanation developed elsewhere in Defeasible Logic can be expressed in the context of formal argumentation. With this done, we discuss the deontic meaning of this reconstruction and show how to build from argumentation neighborhood structures for deontic logic where this notion of explanation can be characterised. Some direct complexity results are offered.
... Indicated by the keyword framtida ('[in the] future'), MIG 2009:9 is one of those precedents that reason around the likelihood of certain events in the future. Throughout the empirical chapters, I problematize this practice of making factual claims based on empirical reasoning (Alexy, 1989) that assesses the "future risk of harm" (Johannesson, 2017, p. 177) that an expulsion of the respective applicant(s) could entail. Of course, asylum law is not the only area of law in which decisions are taken (partially) on the basis of assessing risks. ...
... Thus, explicitly, "the principle of the unity of family" and, implicitly, the principle of 'the child's best' (barnets bästa) are invoked. As legal principles, in terms of legitimation strategies, they exemplify how, firstly, legal discourse makes claims to correctness (Alexy, 1989) when using the word principle. In MIG 2012:9, the clear example of this being "the principle of the unity of the family". ...
This study focuses on asylum cases decided at Sweden’s migration courts. More precisely, it analyses how the highest legal instance, the Migration Court of Appeal (hereafter MCA), legitimizes decisions that concern asylum seekers. Using critical discourse analysis (CDA), the study makes power relations visible. Investigating central discursive claims that are expressed in the precedents of Swedish asylum law, certain power relations are identified as particularly unbalanced. Based on the identification of what I subsequently call the institutionalized power imbalance of the asylum system, the study’s findings compel me to challenge this imbalance. After conducting ten interviews with judges at Sweden’s four (second-instance) Migration Courts as well as at the (third-instance) MCA, I reviewed 200 precedents (published 2006-2016) that concern people who applied for a residence permit in Sweden. Of these 200, 75 precedents of relevance for Swedish asylum law appear in the study. Drawing on Robert Stake’s understanding of a collective case study, the interviews are used to sample six precedents for in-depth analysis. Through a CDA of these last-instance decisions it is demonstrated how precedents of Swedish asylum law discursively represent 1) families with children, 2) class, race, ethnicity and religion, gender and sexuality, and 3) the policy of ‘regulated immigration’. Building on Norman Fairclough’s conceptualization of discursive legitimation strategies, and with the help of Robert Alexy’s and Jürgen Habermas’ approaches to legal discourse, it is argued that precedents of Swedish asylum law are not only legitimized based on I) the authority of law, but also by reference to II) the rationalization of empirical reasoning, III) the utility of institutionalized actions that can use law as means for political ends, IV) those moral evaluations that permeate legal discourse, and V) the storytelling that appears when legal texts are read as narratives. This argumentation highlights uncertainty, which affects the social reality of asylum processes and which appears to be represented when precedents of Swedish asylum law are legitimized by reference to rationalization, moral evaluation, and/or as narratives. Providing the respective decisions with some meaning, rather than merely making sure that they are legally correct, the analysed precedents are, thus, legitimized not only by reference to the authority of law. Referring to Şeyla Benhabib and her usage of Robert Cover’s distinction between ‘law as power’ and ‘law as meaning’, a CDA of precedents of Swedish asylum law can, in this sense, illustrate how judges pay notice to the complexity of refugee migration in the world of today.
... Key examples of substantive norms that provide foundational dogmas of argumentation in modern legal orders are human rights, human dignity, and the rule of law. Canonical validity in law is generally informed by legal rules and principles, past judicial decisions, and canons of legal interpretation and reasoning (Aarnio 1987;Alexy 1989;Provenzano & Larson 2020). Insofar as these traditional standards are eventually supplemented, or replaced, by relatively novel standards, such as goals (Westerman 2010) or risks (Black 2010), the traditional shape of legal argumentation is modified. ...
... As for pragmatic norms, of particular importance in a legal context are justificatory norms, norms for allocating the burden of proof (onus probandi) (Gordon & Walton 2009;Prakken & Sartor 2009), as well as transition norms that regulate the back-and-forth movement between general public argumentation and its legal counterpart (e.g., Alexy 1989). A convenient example is climate change litigation, where the basic question is whether and how to translate general policy goals, as well as ethical or moral duties of environmental protection (e.g., conserving biodiversity or preventing climate change), into legal obligations and rights, and what standards of proof to employ. ...
Argumentation as the public exchange of reasons is widely thought to enhance deliberative interactions that generate and justify reasonable public policies. Adopting an argumentation-theoretic perspective, we survey the norms that should govern public argumentation and address some of the complexities that scholarly treatments have identified. Our focus is on norms associated with the ideals of correctness and participation as sources of a politically legitimate deliberative outcome. In principle, both ideals are mutually coherent. If the information needed for a correct deliberative outcome is distributed among agents, then maximising participation increases information diversity. But both ideals can also be in tension. If participants lack competence or are prone to biases, a correct deliberative outcome requires limiting participation. The central question for public argumentation, therefore, is how to strike a balance between both ideals. Rather than advocating a preferred normative framework, our main purpose is to illustrate the complexity of this theme.
... Deductivism or, as Luís Duarte d'Almeida calls it, rule-deductivism is a view that some parts of justification of a legal decision can be reconstructed by using legal syllogism (Duarte, 2019). Because of the prevalence of rule-deductivism (Alexy, 1989;MacCormick, 2005;Larenz & Canaris, 1995;Neimanis, 2004;Plotnieks, 2009) and in order not to get complacent, it is important to engage with critics who challenge the dominant view. This somewhat polemic is helpful and necessary to advance the understanding of the role (if any) that the legal syllogism has in justification of legal decisions. ...
... The problem with the first example is that even prima facie it does not fulfil any of the three aforementioned requirements. This is because the court asserts: "that on the true construction of section 1 (1), taking into consideration the mischief at which the Act of 1959 was aimed, it mattered not where a prostitute stood (whether on a balcony, or in a room behind a closed, or half-open window), if her solicitation was projected to and addressed to somebody walking in the street, she was guilty of an offence against section 1 (1)" (Smith v Hughes, 1960). ...
Many legal theorists subscribe to the claim that the legal syllogism has a role in justification of legal decisions. A challenge to this thesis is put forward in Luis Duarte d’Almeida’s essay “On the Legal Syllogism”. This article aims to examine Luis Duarte d’Almeida’s arguments against rule-deductivism in order to refine the theoretical understanding of the role that the legal syllogism has in the justification of legal decisions. In this article, three main research methods have been used: the descriptive, the deductive, and the analytical method. The examination of Luis Duarte d’Almeida’s arguments against rule-deductivism results in several conclusions. Firstly, the general argument against rule-deductivism fails because of some faulty assumptions about the scope of the major premise in respect to the scope of the statutory rule entailed by its ratio legis, i.e. that this adherence must be perfect when the judge is expanding the scope of the statutory rule by referring to the general purpose of the rule. Secondly, the critique of the first notion of rule-deductivism is effective, but only insofar as one also adheres to several contentious assumptions that are held by some rule-deductivists, but are not essential to rule-deductivism. Keywords: legal syllogism, rule-deductivism, teleological correction
... Advocates of Günther's theory contend that discursive legal rationality is particularly pertinent in contemporary contexts, where social complexity and the plurality of values demand more dynamic and participatory approaches to lawmaking (Günther, 1993, p. 108). In increasingly diverse societies, the ability to include different perspectives and experiences in the legal process is deemed essential for ensuring the legitimacy and justice of legal norms (Alexy, 1989, p. 120). ...
This article investigates the theoretical relationship between Klaus Günther and Robert Alexy concerning their conceptions of law. While both philosophers share a foundation in practical rationality and normativity, they diverge significantly in methodological and practical aspects. The objective is to explore the similarities and differences between their theories, emphasizing their contributions to contemporary legal theory. The methodology involves a detailed conceptual analysis through na extensive literature review of their main works, complemented by critical commentary. This study introduces a comparative analysis, examining books such as “The Sense of Appropriateness” by Günther and “A Theory of Legal Argumentation” and “A Theory of Constitutional Rights” by Alexy. The results argue that, although Günther and Alexy both stress the importance of practical rationality and legal normativity, their methodological approaches differ. Günther’s emphasis on democratic participation and discourse provides a more robust framework for legal legitimacy and normativity compared to Alexy’s focus on clear normative structures and proportionality. The conclusions highlight that Günther’s integration of discursive elements and active participation promotes greater justice and equity in the legal system. This approach, enriched by insights from commentators such as Habermas, Fraser, and Forst, is seen as a significant extension of Alexy’s ideas, offering a more inclusive and participatory view of law, which is crucial for contemporary legal theory.
... However, our case for the normative relevance of empirical work seems limited when legal reasoning takes other types of argument, such as the textual interpretation based on semantic arguments, to justify the normative conclusion. In traditional methodological discussions of the ranking of the canons of interpretation, it is widely assumed that the textual interpretation should take (at least primafacie) priority over other canons of statutory interpretation, unless the semantic argument by itself cannot definitively determine the answer to a legal question (see, e.g., Koch and Rüßmann 1982;Alexy 1989;Larenz 1991). Nevertheless, the semantic argument is obviously neither teleological nor consequential. ...
Empirical legal studies are often challenged by traditional doctrinal legal scholars as irrelevant to normative legal reasoning. This article explores, through the lens of jurisprudence and by drawing on dozens of empirical works, the junction between empirical facts and normative arguments. Both teleological and consequential arguments, in one of their premises, employ “difference-making facts” which identify the causal effects of certain legal measures as reasons for normative claims. Empirical works make causal inferences and their findings thus constitute an essential part of teleological and consequential arguments, which are prevalent in normative legal reasoning. All causal-identifying empirical findings can be framed as the required empirical premise in teleological and consequential arguments. Finally, although some classical canons of legal interpretation, such as textual and systemic arguments, appear not to take the form of teleological or consequential arguments, the use of these specific legal arguments must nonetheless be justified by teleological or consequential arguments at the meta-level. Thus, normative legal reasoning, one way or another, must have empirical foundations.
... Esta tesis afirma que la argumentación o discurso jurídico es un caso especial del razonamiento práctico general. 93 El razonamiento práctico general es un discurso no institucionalizado sobre cuestiones prácticas. Como discurso práctico general se refiere a toda clase de argumentos prácticos no autoritativos. ...
La tesis de que el Derecho tiene una dimensión ideal se basa esencialmente en el argumento de que el Derecho plantea necesariamente una pretensión de corrección, que incluye una pretensión de corrección moral. John Finnis ha impugnado la necesidad de esta conexión entre el Derecho y una pretensión con contenido moral. Una implicación de la pretensión de corrección es la fórmula Radbruch, según la cual la injusticia extrema no es ley. Finnis también critica esta fórmula. En este artículo se presentan argumentos contra los dos puntos críticos de Finnis. A continuación, se elabora un sistema de la institucionalización de la razón, que comprende no solo la fórmula de Radbruch, sino también la tesis del caso especial, los derechos humanos, la democracia y la teoría de los principios.
Traducción del profesor Francisco M. Mora-Siuentes (Universidad de Guanajuato, México), https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9881-2730. Publicado originalmente como "The Ideal Dimension of Law", en G. Duke y R. P. George (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Natural Law Jurisprudence , Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2017, pp. 314-341. Este ensayo se traduce y publica por permiso expreso del autor a Alejandro nava tovar (UAM-Azcapotzalco), quien revisó la traducción, elaboró el Abstract y las palabras claves.
... The question of interest here, however, is whether the dual-nature theory has interesting implications for legal argumentation. To see whether this is so, we might consider Alexy's wellknown discourse theory of legal argumentation (Alexy 1989(Alexy [1978), the leading idea of which 15 is that a legal statement -such as, say, "Smith ought to pay Jones damages" or "Brown is guilty of assault" -is legally justified if, and only if, it can be the result of a rational discourse. On Alexy's analysis, such discourse proceeds in accordance with a system of rules, principles and forms of general practical discourse, which Alexy (2018, 255) takes to be "noninstitutionalized, completely free discourse about practical questions, that is, about what is obligatory, forbidden, and allowed, or what is good and bad." ...
... Os valores também se invertem quando se toma a perspectiva não apenas de um ministro "X" citando um manual para afirmar "A", sendo que o manual utiliza os votos do próprio ministro "X" para fundamentar a doutrina; outro ministro citando Gadamer como fonte de autoridade para, ao proferir sua decisão, dizer "afasto-me então de todos os preconceitos" (Gadamer defendia justamente o contrário: a necessidade e o caráter positivo dos pré-conceitos para compreensão); dois ministros aplicando a ponderação de valores (Alexy, 1989) para, no mesmo julgamento, chegarem a conclusões opostas; jurisprudência que pouco ou nada tem a ver com o caso fundamentando a decisão etc. A "posição vencedora" é aquela que tiver mais votos, independentemente das razões que justificam o voto "deferido" ou "indeferido". ...
This article aims to examine law as a form of language. Therefore, it is a grammatical inquiry. The article has two parts. The first examines, very briefly, what a grammatical investigation means in the context of an anthropology of law. The second describes, also very briefly, the grammar of law. The description is the result of daily coexistence between the author and field participants from a private university in Brasília over 12 years.
KEYWORDS:
Legal anthropology; language; Wittgenstein; Hierarchical Opposition
... In this sense, about the judicial decisions, the German professor Robert Alexy had already stated, if we don't see it: (Alexy, 2017) In a large number of cases, the legal decision that puts an end to a legal dispute, expressed in a singular normative statement, does not follow logically from the formulations of legal norms that suppose to be in force, together with the empirical statements that must be recognized as true or proven. ...
... In foreign research, legal argumentation is the subject of analysis both in the theory of argumentation and in legal research, in particular in the works of such authors as D. Walton [10]; F. Van Eemeren [11]; L. Bermejo-Luque [12]; E. Feteris [13; 14]; K. Tindale [15]; R. Alexy [16]; M. Hinton [17]. Among other aspects, representatives of different schools of legal argumentation study the components of the study of legal argumentation, normative and/or theoretical models of legal argumentation as part of its research programme at the theoretical level, features of reconstruction and evaluation of legal argumentation, means of legal argumentation in legal discourse as a kind of general practical discourse. ...
The relevance of the study is explained by the fact that the legal arguments used by judges in particular when making decisions are often criticised. The general theoretical understanding of legal argumentation, which is the purpose of this study, can help to solve the urgent problem of improving legal argumentation. The article substantiates the general theoretical model of legal argumentation, which is carried out in different types of legal activities – lawmaking, interpretation, law enforcement. For this purpose, such research methods as general theoretical, modelling, deduction, analysis and abstraction were used. It is proposed to distinguish between terminological legal argumentation as an activity and legal argumentation as a result of this activity, and the result of activities to reconstruct the legal argumentation of another entity, and provide a definition of each of these concepts. It is established that the general theoretical model of legal argumentation covers composition (corpus) of legal argumentation, tools of legal argumentation, reconstruction and evaluation of legal argumentation. It is identified that in the composition (corpus) of legal argumentation it is reasonable to include: argumentative situation; subjective composition; the purpose of the right argument; object of legal argumentation; the content of legal argumentation. The substantive and procedural aspects of the tools of legal argumentation are singled out. The practical value of the article is that the general theoretical model of legal argumentation creates grounds for improving argumentative practice in various types of legal activity
... Argumentative text analysis is an interpretation method for clarifying arguments (Fisher, 2004). Being studied in argumentation theory, logic, or epistemology, it is widely taught and applied as a key critical thinking skill in, e.g., law (Alexy, 1989), the humanities (Bruce and Barbone, 2011), social sciences (Fairclough and Fairclough, 2012), policy advice (Hansson and Hirsch-Hadorn, 2016), or public debate (Beck et al., 2019). This paper presents a computational approach for deep argument analysis, i.e., for reconstructing naturallanguage arguments from a given text, as in the following example (adapted from Siegel, 2018): ...
... From a legal theoretical perspective, scholars have been discussing how legal decisions can be justified rationally, which steps should be taken in justifying a legal decision and, finally, how these steps may be defended. A dominant theme in Robert Alexy's [9] research on legal argumentation is precisely the way normative statements instantiated by legal decisions can be justified rationally. In Alexy's view, a normative statement is not true or acceptable unless the judgement could be the result of rational discourse. ...
This paper aims to perform a multi-level analysis of the Irish public discourse on Covid-19. Despite widespread agreement that Ireland’s response was rapid and effective, the country’s journey through the pandemic has been no easy ride. In order to contain the virus, the Government’s emergency legislation imposed draconian measures including the detention and isolation of people deemed to be even “a potential source of infection” and a significant extension of An Garda Síochána’s power of arrest. In April 2020, journalists John Waters and Gemma O’Doherty initiated judicial review proceedings before the High Court to challenge such legislation, which they defined as unconstitutional, “disproportionate” and based on “fraudulent science”. The proceedings attracted widespread media coverage in what soon became a debate on the legitimacy of emergency legislation and the notion of ‘fake news’ itself. After a brief survey of the legislative background to Ireland’s Covid response, the argumentative strategy is analysed through which the High Court eventually dismissed Mr Waters and Ms O’Doherty’s challenge. Focusing on the process of justification of the judicial decision, the paper provides a descriptive account of the argument structure of the Court’s decision. This sheds light on the pattern of multiple argumentation through which the Court interpreted relevant norms in the Constitution and at once re-established the primacy of “facts” informing political decision-making at a time of national emergency.
... This concern for strategic action as a means to engage with law confronts an important cleavage in legal theory between a conception of law as a communicative practice and its rejection of the strategic rationality (Habermas, 1984;1998;Alexy, 1989). In discourse theory, there is a distinction between communicative and strategic action. ...
This paper examines the tension between law's opportunity to deliver social transformation and the normative limitations that shape its effectiveness as a tool of social struggle. The role of law's normative limitations on legal mobilisation strategies, or the effect of entrenched social interests on permissible legal claims, has not been properly conceptualised in legal mobilisation scholarship. In response, this paper presents a conceptual framework that comprehends the opportunity and limitation of legal mobilisation as caught in the tension between the interpretive opportunity to redetermine legal meaning and the normative deficit inherent to this task. By re-engaging with the theoretical underpinnings of legal mobilisation, we will evaluate the potential for certain types of social transformation using law and revisit the rationale for strategic legal action. We will bring together our conceptual treatment of legal mobilisation with a sobering analysis of the Argentinian factory recuperation movement's mobilisation of legal demands. The movement's relative success in confronting the legal system's commitment to private property rights and winning protections for worker co-operatives presents an opportunity to learn about the effective potential of legal strategy and the extent to which it can be used to confront the normative commitments of a legal system.
... Argumentative text analysis is an interpretation method for clarifying arguments (Fisher 2004). Being studied in argumentation theory, logic, or epistemology, it is widely taught and applied as a key critical thinking skill in, e.g., law (Alexy 1989), the humanities (Bruce and Barbone 2011), social sciences (Fairclough and Fairclough 2012), policy advice (Hansson and Hirsch-Hadorn 2016), or public debate (Beck, Neupane, and Carroll 2019). This paper presents a computational approach for deep argument analysis, i.e., for reconstructing natural-language arguments from a given text, as in the following example (adapted from Siegel 2018): source text reconstructed argument It is unethical to destroy human embryos. ...
In this paper, we present and implement a multi-dimensional, modular framework for performing deep argument analysis (DeepA2) using current pre-trained language models (PTLMs). ArgumentAnalyst -- a T5 model (Raffel et al. 2020) set up and trained within DeepA2 -- reconstructs argumentative texts, which advance an informal argumentation, as valid arguments: It inserts, e.g., missing premises and conclusions, formalizes inferences, and coherently links the logical reconstruction to the source text. We create a synthetic corpus for deep argument analysis, and evaluate ArgumentAnalyst on this new dataset as well as on existing data, specifically EntailmentBank (Dalvi et al. 2021). Our empirical findings vindicate the overall framework and highlight the advantages of a modular design, in particular its ability to emulate established heuristics (such as hermeneutic cycles), to explore the model's uncertainty, to cope with the plurality of correct solutions (underdetermination), and to exploit higher-order evidence.
This chapter aims to guide the reader into the practice of critical legal research in international law. After describing some of the main ideas and concerns of critical international legal thinking, the chapter delves into the basic working methods of critical international law: legal deconstruction and the critical rhetorical analysis of law. It ends by proposing a few activities that can help the reader to reflect upon the ideas learned in this chapter and transfer them into their own research.
Mechanismus konkrétní kontroly norem podle čl. 95 odst. 2 Ústavy je důležitý nástroj formující vztah mezi Ústavním soudem a obecnými soudy. Článek přináší první komplexní analýzu tohoto mechanismu. Analýza je třívrstevná – zahrnuje tradiční doktrinální analýzu, kontextuální analýzu s ohledem na dělbu moci a konečně empirickou kvantitativní analýzu. Cílem je prostřednictvím kombinace různých metod (a perspektiv) přinést plastický obrázek toho, jak mechanismus podle čl. 95 odst. 2 funguje a může fungovat. Článek ukazuje, že čl. 95 odst. 2 slouží jako platforma pro mezisoudní dialog o ústavních otázkách a také, že ho lze využít jako sebeobranný mechanismus moci soudní. Zároveň kritizuje, že restriktivní výklad, který Ústavní soud v některých rozhodnutích zastává, prakticky vylučuje určitou skupinu norem z přezkumu a brání ústavněprávnímu dialogu. Přínos textu spočívá také v představení prvních empirických dat o fungování konkrétní kontroly norem na návrh obecných soudů v Česku.
The legal capacity to fundamental rights gives the right-holder the ability to exercise and enforce fundamental rights. In the absence or questionable status of the legal capacity of a right-holder, there is a need to justify such a position. In this regard, no general standards based on legal doctrine and jurisprudence can be identified. The paper focuses on the question of whether the principle of proportionality could play a role in identifying and justifying the legal capacity to fundamental rights. Based on a review of the literature, two functions of the proportionality analysis can be identified as relevant in this regard: it supports the justification of the decision to restrict fundamental rights and it precludes arbitrary decisions in relation to the limitation. The author argues that, based on its justificatory function, proportionality can play a role in identifying the legal capacity to fundamental rights in the case of human persons. In the case of autonomous organizations, in addition to its justificatory function, its function related to the exclusion of arbitrary decisions can be taken into account when using it as a standard for identifying legal capacity. In the case of human persons and autonomous organizations, there is a need for a negative justification of the limitation of legal capacity, based on proportionality. In the case of new challengers in fundamental rights disputes (such as future generations), a positive justification is required to determine legal capacity. The proportionality analysis does not play a role here, but rather other standards that require a rationality-based justification.
Hvilke krav stiller god forvaltningsskikk til forvaltningen? I kjølvannet av trygdeskandalen har det blitt reist spørs- mål om rettssikkerhetens vilkår i norsk forvaltning. Et gjennomgangstema er at Nav må bli bedre til å begrunne sine vedtak. Bedre begrunnelse innebærer imidlertid økt oppmerksomhet om EUs krav til god forvaltningsskikk. I denne artikkelen viser vi hvorfor dette krever utarbeidelse av en prinsippbasert forvaltningsskikk som går utover lovens bok- stav. Forvaltningen har et krav på seg om å fatte vedtak som er rettferdige, og som kan stå seg i en offentlig debatt. Vi klargjør det normative rammeverket for denne forvaltningsskikken med søkelys på legitimitetshensynene effektivitet, kompetanse, legalitet og rimelighet. Resultatet er en teori om rettssikkerhet gjennom begrunnelse hvor materielle og prosedurale rettssikkerhetskrav ivaretas av en prinsippstyrt offentlig fornuft.
Hukukî akıl yürütme hukukun her aşamasında içkindir ve her akıl yürütme gibi doğru değerlendirmeyi amaçlar. Hukukta doğruluk meşruluk, hukuka uygunluk veya haklılık olarak karşımıza çıkabilir. Meşruluk da hukuka uygunluk da haklılık da gerekçelerle gösterilir. Argümantasyon, fiilî veya potansiyel fikir çatışmaları ile yürüyen, fiilî veya potansiyel muhatabı gerekçelerle ikna etmeyi amaçlayan bir süreçtir. Dolayısıyla hukukun özel bir tür argümantasyon faaliyeti olduğu söylenebilir. Sağlam argümantasyonun koşul ve gerekleri bulunduğumuz konuma göre değişecektir. Bu çalışmada Stephen E. Toulmin’in argümantasyon teorisi, felsefî arka planı ile birlikte ortaya konmaya çalışılacaktır. Yazar pratik akıl yürütmelerin değerlendirilmesinde şeklî mantığın yetersiz olduğunu düşünür ve argümantasyonu “informel/şeklî olmayan” mantık olarak görür. Ona göre bir argümanın gücü hem geçerli hem de sağlam olmasından gelir. Toulmin’in düşüncesi, argümantasyonun ve hukukî argümanların değerlendirilmesi için kullanışlı bir çerçeve sağlar. Çalışmanın amacı bu çerçevede hukuk kavramını ve hukukî akıl yürütmeyi yeniden değerlendirmek ve argümantasyon ile hukuk, argümantasyon teorisi ile hukuk teorisi arasındaki değiş-tokuşa işaret etmektir.
The aim of this study is to discuss some important criticism of digital rights, in particular of the right to privacy, by feminist and law economics scholars.Then,its relation to security and transparency is proposed. In particular, I argue that such theoretical lenses would help shed light on recent cases concerning controversial surveillance leaks, which highlight the deficiency of legitimacy as well as of the jurisdiction and ethical agency of leading democratic states: e.g. The NSA scandal. Finally, I will criticize this approach and will highlight some real treats to the fundamental rights when I consider the possibility of a pluralist democracy in the dimension of the Internet.
La articulación de la teoría del derecho con otros saberes jurídicos no siempre ha sido clara ni fructífera. Hay elaboraciones teóricas que no recurren a discusiones dogmáticas o discursos dogmáticos que no afrontan las cuestiones teóricas al momento de resolver los problemas jurídicos. En la dogmática jurídica, las contribuciones teóricas parecen un agregado sin valor epistemológico, pues son concebidas como distantes y poco conectadas con el derecho positivo. El propósito de este texto es analizar los presupuestos epistemológicos y metodológicos que podrían fundamentar una posible relación entre teoría del derecho y dogmática jurídica. El capítulo está estructurado en tres acápites: el primero propone un modelo conceptual para clasificar saberes jurídicos y analizar la naturaleza de los enunciados sobre el derecho. El segundo reconstruye los presupuestos epistemológicos y metodológicos de las teorías del derecho dominantes en la cultura jurídica contemporánea. El tercero analiza las relaciones entre una variante de la teoría analítica del derecho y dogmática jurídica en aras de evidenciar la interdependencia que existe entre ambas formas de conocimiento. En términos generales, argumento que la teoría del derecho es un metalenguaje de la dogmática jurídica, es decir, opera como un lenguaje de segundo nivel en relación con el discurso de los juristas dogmáticos. Así, las contribuciones teóricas no serían ascensos metafísicos sino elaboraciones conceptuales que ayudan a determinar el contenido del derecho positivo. Esta idea de teoría del derecho abandona las aspiraciones especulativas y se comporta como una actividad analítica, descriptiva o prescriptiva respecto del aparato conceptual de los juristas.
This paper reconstructs in the context of formal argumentation the notion of stable explanation developed elsewhere in Defeasible Logic. With this done, we discuss the deontic meaning of this notion and show how to build from argumentation neighborhood structures for deontic logic where a stable explanation can be characterised.
The spillover of rights is driven at the general level by the ‘Ever Closer Union’ clause enshrined in Article 1(2) TEU. And it is in this context that the spillover of rights can be viewed as an integral part of the legacy of neofunctionalism for explaining the process of European integration. The observed spillover of rights is a powerful phenomenon that acts as a trigger for facilitating European integration – even though, as in any system, there are obvious shortcomings in the form of spillback, specifically demonstrated by the limitation of individual rights during the economic crisis. They do not impair the integrational process as the rights in the EU possess a potential for accumulating the forces through other instruments available in the EU legal order that allows them to foster the European project, despite distress that can be acknowledged at first sight. In fact, the spillback of rights demonstrates their pliancy and their responsiveness to the persistent calls of effectiveness. It also explains why rights are so resilient in the process of European integration. As has been shown in this chapter, the European rights are resilient since they constitute the privilege tools for ensuring the institutionalisation of the ‘Ever Closer Union’ clause through a process of rationalisation. In other words, ‘Unity’, ‘Diversity’ and ‘Transparency’ (the normative core values of Article 1(2) TEU) have been institutionalised by the courts’ case law on individual rights with the help of a complex network of legal principles, the central principle being the autopoietic principle of EU administrative and constitutional law, namely proportionality. This network of principles tied to the application of rights tells us that the telos of European integration is not only about unity but also about diversity. In practice, it means that the effectiveness of EU law is not absolute and that there are situations in which it is accepted that EU law should yield and where national interests should prevail. To understand the resilience of rights in the process of European integration, it is also important to analyse their internal logic or voice. Rights in EU law are founded on a functional logic epitomised by their own origin, structure and hermeneutic. The strength of the obligations and the concomitant functional logic of the ECJ offer a plausible explanation regarding the resilience of ‘rights’ in the EU legal order. Yet the resilience of ‘rights’ in EU law can only be fully explained if it is connected in turn to the recognition of their functional acceptance at the domestic level by different epistemic communities representing private interests. This phenomenon constitutes the positive feedback loop of European rights in the process of European integration.
In order to analyze the trustworthiness of complex software systems, we propose a model of evidence-based software trustworthiness called trustworthiness derivation tree (TDT). The basic idea of constructing a TDT is to refine main properties into key ingredients and continue the refinement until basic facts such as evidences are reached. The skeleton of a TDT can be specified by a set of rules, which are convenient for automated reasoning in Prolog. We develop a visualization tool that can construct the skeleton of a TDT by taking the rules as input, and allow a user to edit the TDT in a graphical user interface. In a software development life cycle, TDTs can serve as a communication means for different stakeholders to agree on the properties about a system in the requirement analysis phase, and they can be used for deductive reasoning so as to verify whether the system achieves trustworthiness in the product validation phase. We have piloted the approach of using TDTs in more than a dozen real scenarios of software development. Indeed, using TDTs helped us to discover and then resolve some subtle problems.
The relevance of the research is determined by the fact that the arguments given by law-makers during the discussion of draft laws and judges for the purpose of legal interpretation and legal application are often criticized. The general theoretical view of arguments, which is the goal of this research, can help solve the current task of improving legal argumentation. The article is based on the so-called European understanding of the argument and substantiates the types of arguments that are used in law-making, official legal interpretation and legal applica- tion in Ukraine. For this, such methods of research as general theoretical, typology, classifica- tion, analysis of argumentative practice and reconstruction of identified arguments were used. It was found that the methodological basis of arguments is the criterium for distinguishing those varieties of them, which are called types of arguments, namely: hermeneutic and topical; ethical; pragmadialectic. It is substantiated that it is possible to classify arguments, in particular, ac- cording to the following criteria: 1) the means for construction of premises of the argument; 2) the form of inference, which lies the base of the argument; 3) probative force of the argument; 4) the object of legal argumentation; 5) the role in the argumentative structure; 6) the stage of legal regulation; 7) the source of the argument. The list of criteria for classification of arguments is not exhaustive. The practical value of the article consists in the fact that identifying the types of arguments in legal argumentation is important for improving the argumentative practice of institutional arguers.
Keywords: legal argument, extralegal argument, factual argument, hypothetical argument, law-regulatory argument, doctrinal argument.
Today, there is a clear need in developing a unified theoretical model of legal argumentation viable for all areas of legal practice and legal doctrine. Despite the existence of several models within either general argumentation theory or multiple judicial-reasoning doctrines, none of them can be used as a universal tool for studies of legal argumentation. The aim of this article is to suggest a theoretical model of legal argumentation viable for analysis of legal argumentation not only in judicial reasoning but also in other areas, e.g., law making, law application, or law interpretation. The subject matter of this article is a theoretical model of legal argumentation as a universal multidisciplinary theoretical basis for legal argumentation analysis. The theoretical model of legal argumentation encompasses an argumentative situation, a body of legal arguing, instruments of legal arguing and argumentation, a reconstruction and an evaluation of legal argumentation. In its turn, the body of legal arguing includes: parties of legal arguing, a subject of legal arguing, and a content of legal arguing. The instruments of legal arguing include legal and other arguments, argument schemes, argumentation structures, and rules of legal argumentation.
Con la expedición de la Ley 1437 de 18 de enero de 20111
, Código de
Procedimiento Administrativo y de lo Contencioso Administrativo –cpaca–, se establecieron nuevas instituciones jurídicas que conforman una
serie de derechos, deberes y obligaciones de la administración, disponibles para ser consultadas por todos los ciudadanos y poder así hacer
efectivo el cumplimiento de sus derechos. Una de las instituciones jurídicas que se planteó en el cpaca fue la extensión y unificación de la
jurisprudencia del Consejo Estado –C. E.–. Así pues, en el espacio que se
desarrolla en el artículo 271 de la citada ley, las providencias judiciales
proferidas por la mencionada corporación deben estar fundamentadas
en ciertos criterios.
Ahora bien, los criterios de unificación jurisprudencial del C. E. nacen de la aplicación de los principios presentes en el cpaca al establecer el deber de los funcionarios públicos y las autoridades judiciales
administrativas de dar aplicación uniforme a las normas constitucionales, legales y reglamentarias cuando se presenten situaciones con
los mismos presupuestos fácticos y jurídicos; así pues, la ley determina
que cuando a consideración del C. E. se presenten situaciones donde o
bien por importancia jurídica, trascendencia económica o social, o por
necesidad de sentar jurisprudencia o unificarla, éste podrá proferir
sentencias de unificación jurisprudencial.
En este escenario, resulta entonces pertinente preguntarse ¿cuáles
son los criterios utilizados por la Sección Tercera del C. Estado. para
proferir providencias de unificación, amén de las facultades otorgadas
a esta corporación por parte del cpaca?
Acorde con la línea central de investigación de la Facultad de Derecho de la Universidad La Gran Colombia: “Derecho para la justicia, la
convivencia y la inclusión social” caracterizada por una reflexión profunda sobre la dinámica de la relación del derecho y la sociedad, en el
desarrollo de una mejor convivencia para responder al desafío de la
inclusión social y la sub-línea de investigación denominada: “Derecho
constitucional, reforma de la administración de justicia y bloques de
constitucionalidad” desde donde se contempla el análisis de los criterios que rigen el ejercicio de unificación jurisprudencial, entendido
como un proceso de transformación material del derecho que genera
un nuevo espacio de reforma tanto en el ámbito administrativo como
en el constitucional; con el ánimo estudiar la facultad interpretativa
de la norma inherente a los jueces de la República, se presenta este
proyecto de investigación cuyo eje central es el estudio de los criterios
que se tienen en cuenta para utilizar la institución de la unificación de
jurisprudencia.
Un problema central del derecho se refiere a la creación del precedente en los términos del cpaca, el cual constituye un instrumento
fundamental para que el fallador pueda proferir una posición uniforme
en cuanto a la forma de entender una norma aplicable; sin embargo, a
la luz de la interpretación que le ha dado la Sección Tercera del C. E. a
los criterios propuestos por el cpaca, se ha generado un vacío de tipo
conceptual y metodológico en la utilización de los mismos, teniendo
como resultado poca claridad sobre qué criterios se tienen en cuenta
al momento de unificar jurisprudencia, ya sea porque algunos temas se
unifican de manera repetitiva, mientras otros son dejados de lado sin
una justificación clara para no hacerlo. El cpaca determina que para
realizar la unificación no solo se tendrán en cuenta los criterios formales descritos en el artículo 270 “… importancia jurídica, trascendencia
económica o social o por necesidad de unificar o sentar jurisprudencia”, sino que también podrá ser el resultado de una decisión mediante
el uso de los recursos extraordinarios dispuestos.
En lo que se refiere a los criterios antes descritos, éstos resultan
relativos, pues al no existir una parametrización que determine el referente explícito para la aplicación de cada uno de ellos, se genera un
amplio espectro de subjetividad. Así pues, la finalidad de este proyecto
radicó en la identificación de los criterios que utiliza la Sección Tercera
del C. E. para unificar sentencias y la necesidad de establecer un bloque de criterios que sean tenidos en cuenta para la subsunción de un caso
en el marco de ellos, así como identificar cuáles son los criterios que
llevan a las transformaciones normativas en el campo de la unificación
jurisprudencial, a través del reconocimiento del precedente, su evolución histórica en Colombia y el impacto del mismo en el proceso de
constitucionalización del derecho, identificando las áreas de conflicto
y de vacío jurídico que se producen en este espacio para el caso colombiano.
This book considers how law is always enacted, or performed, in ways that can be analyzed in relation to fiction, theatre, and other dramatic forms. Of necessity, lawyers and judges need to devise techniques to make rules respond situationally. The performance of law supplements, or it extends the reach of, the law-as-written. And, in this respect, the act of lawyering is in many ways an instantiation of acts often associated with, for example, literature and the plastic and performing arts. Combining legal theory and legal practice, this book maintains that the modes of enquiry found in, and applied to, novels, paintings, and plays can help us understand how things like legal arguments and trials work-or don't. As such, and through the examination of a wide range of both historical and fictional legal cases, the book pursues an interdisciplinary analysis of how law is performed; and, moreover, how legal performances can be accomplished ethically. This book will appeal to scholars and students in sociolegal studies, legal theory, and jurisprudence, as well as those teaching and training in legal practice. Randy Gordon is Executive Professor of Law and History at Texas A&M University. He is the Founding Managing Partner of the Dallas office of Duane Morris LLP, where he focuses on antitrust, RICO, class-action, and university-related matters.
The article is dedicated to the general theoretic study of the instruments of legal arguing and legal argumentation. The author determines that the substantive instruments of legal arguing are the arguments, while the argument schemes and argumentation structures serve for the purpose of reconstruction and evaluation of legal argumentation. The lack of unified understanding of what is argument in foreign and national legal studies is stated, as well as the impossibility of exhaustive categorization of the arguments in law. The argument is the basic tool of legal arguing. According to C. Tindale, in European tradition the concept of argument encompasses both premises of the argument (argumentation) and its conclusion (standpoint, claim). The concept of argument is rather vague. The author highlights the correlation of the argument and explanation as well as the argument and proof. The reasons for the argument are rooted in the sources of law, that makes argumentation legal. In the argumentation theory, the notions of «argument scheme» and «argumentation structure» are used in addition to the concept of argument. Argument scheme is the internal argument structure. An argument scheme characterizes the type of justification or refutation provided for the standpoint in a single argument by the explicit premise for the standpoint. Argument structure is considered as an external structure of argumentation. It is defined as the way the reasons advanced hang together and jointly support the defended standpoint. There are singular and multiple argumentation structures. The singular argumentation consists of one argument for or against a standpoint. In case of multiple argumentation, few arguments are put forward for or against the same standpoint to predict and respond counterarguments of an opposite party of legal arguing. The procedural aspect of the instruments of legal arguing are the rules of legal arguing. The procedural means of legal arguing are its procedural rules which depend on an area of legal activity where the argumentation is provided as well as on the peculiarities of the argumentative situation. On the one hand, there are procedural rules of legal arguing in any legal system, for instance, legal rules governing the procedures of debates in a parliament, court system, hearing in the Constitutional Court. On the other hand, there are doctrinal rules of critical discussion, of general and legal discourses, elaborated within the argumentation theory and the legal argumentation theory.
Effective procedural arrangements allow courts to reconcile conflicting demands of timely justice and sound legal argument. In the context of the European Union, conflict between these demands emerged most acutely in the face of paralyzing delays in the preliminary reference procedure. It was partly solved by Article 99 of the Rules of Procedure. The provision allowed the European Court of Justice to dispose of repetitive and legally undemanding cases with a reasoned order in lieu of a judgment. This article analyses all published orders of the European Court of Justice to examine the use and the implications of Article 99 of the Rules of Procedure. It is the first article to do so. We find that the Court resorts to orders to save time and to halt repeated questions from the courts of a single Member State.
The main theme of the article is ideal dimension of law. Author argue for a dual nature thesis – which contends that law necessarily comprises both a real or factual dimension and an ideal or critical dimension – and demonstrates how the ideal dimension (which refers primarily to moral correctness) implies the truth of non-positivism. The key provisions of the conception represented in article are substantiated in a polemic with other well-known representative of non-positivism – John Finnis. Particular attention is paid to determine relation between the real and ideal dimensions of law, which involves answering five questions. First, is there an outermost border of law? Second, is legal argumentation based exclusively on authoritative reasons or does it also include non-authoritative reasons? Third, what is the relation between human rights and legal systems? Forth, is democracy to be understood exclusively as a decision procedure or also as a form of discourse? Fifth, do legal system comprise only rules expressing a real “ought” or also principles expressing an “ideal ought”? These five questions are answered by the following five theses: the first with the Radbruch formula; he second with the special case thesis; the third with the thesis that constitutional rights are to be understood as attempts to positivize human rights; the fourth with the deliberative model of democracy; and the fifth with principles theory. All five theses turn on the same point: the claim to correctness.
The article is devoted to legal argumentation, namely to its research by dialectical approach. The aim of the article is to determine characteristic features of dialectical approach to legal argumentation. Dialectical approach to the research of legal argumentation should include philosophical, theoretical, empirical components. Philosophical component of legal argumentation research consists in the critical conception of rationality i.e. the philosophical axiomatic idea about rationality of legal argumentation, which is systematically tested within discourse or critical discussion. Dialectical theoretical model of legal argumentation ensures mutual acceptability of legal argumentation by the parties. Dialectical approach deals with legal argumentation mainly in the “context of justification.” Dialectical approach to legal arguing implies specific standard of soundness of the argumentation – acceptability standard. Empirical component of legal argumentation includes reconstruction of argumentation and its weighting (analytic component) as well as analysis of particular legal reasoning (practical component). Dialectical approach highlights hermeneutical nature of legal reasoning. Dialectical approach to legal argumentation lets us assume some ontological issues concerning legal argumentation. Legal argumentation is considered as the form of rational communication of particular persons to reach mutual acceptability of legally important conclusions within the procedure of discussion. Legal argumentation is the result of such impact embodied in acceptability of legally binding issues within the procedure of rational discussion.
Článek se zaměřuje na český Ústavní soud a jeho roli v politickém systému během pandemie covidu-19, zejména pak během nouzového stavu, a odpovídá na otázku, jakou roli by měl Ústavní soud za takové situace v systému dělby moci hrát. Normativně-analytický článek na základě obecných tezí pozitivního konstitucionalismu a dosavadních teorií nouzových stavů představuje pět možných přístupů Ústavního soudu při pandemické situaci, z nichž následně vybírá ten dle autora nejvhodnější a přináší negativní i pozitivní důvody pro akceptaci Ústavního soudu jakožto důležitého aktéra politického systému při zvládání pandemie.
The author analyses the contribution of Jürgen Habermas as an open model of legal thought. He focuses more specifically on the question of the transformation of law as "anchored" in democratic legitimacy and therefore to be understood from the life world of concrete individuals. The author emphasizes that Habermas seeks to democratically stabilize "legality and legitimacy" to protect them from all undemocratic usurpation. The author stresses the "social validity" that accompanies all public discourse and the perspective of democracy obtained by speaking out at the level of a multitude of social "procedures". It is through practical discussions that we can "test" the normative proposals to better assess their "meanings and validity", their "cognitivity and universality", their "usefulness (“interest”) and (conceivable) consensus". The author analyses these six bodies of thought in detail to identify the meaning of habermasian thought concerning the democratic transformation of the law. He insists that the transformation of the law is "tested" in society from the bottom up in order to create, as much as possible, the broadest possible social consensus concerning “law”. In the end, the law attests to our ability to live together.
Human and fundamental rights are powerful legal means to protect and promote human dignity. On the one hand, the recognition of implicit and new rights appears unavoidable and desirable as history and its evolving circumstances permanently present new challenges to human dignity. On the other hand, an artificial proliferation of rights can weaken rights’ legal and political worth. The rights system cannot expand limitless, hence criteria to test new rights must be construed in the search of adequate parameters to update the system. These criteria should reveal the presence of substantial fundamentality in rights not explicitly or formally enshrined in the constitutional text. The testing path of new rights is conceived as a discursive process which reinforces the mutual relation between rights and democracy.
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