Search Results for: legal theory

Finding legal approaches to dealing with the past after the fall of communism from the perspective of legal theory and comparative law

Dr hab. Christoph-Eric Mecke, prof. UZ

University of Zielona Góra

English abstract: The paper deals with the question of legal punishment of crimes, in particular crimes against life and freedom, which were committed in the former socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe in the name of the State or at least with its tacit approval. This question is discussed in the paper from the perspectives of legal theory and comparative law.

After clarifying the concept of “communist crimes”, which in countries such as Poland is even a legal concept of applicable law, the first part of the paper examines the legal-theoretical and legal-philosophical problems of criminal penalties for massive human rights violations committed under the laws of the socialist era. As legal-theoretical polar opposites in this regard, it presents the position of Gustav Radbruch with his two famous formulae and the position of Hans Kelsen’s legal positivism. It points out that in the case of communist crimes only the first of Radbruch’s two formulae, the “intolerability formula” can be applied.

The perspective of comparative law is the subject of the second part of the paper. It shows that the spectrum of criminal-law dealing with the communist past since 1989 ranges from a relatively systematic legal prosecution of at least the most serious human rights violation, for example in the cases of homicides at the former inner German border, to complete non-prosecution by the judiciary of Eastern European states such as Russia, Belarus, Georgia, Bulgaria or Croatia. Where criminal prosecution took place, the question arose not only of the statute of limitations, but also of the nulla poena sine lege principle. This principle, which is based on the rule of law, is not only important with respect to the validity of statutory law during the communist era, but also with regard to the different interpretative practices of courts in the former socialist states.

Keywords: legal reassessment of communist crimes, post-socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, Kelsen’s legal positivism, Radbruch’s two formulae, rule of law, nulla poena sine lege

Language: English

Published: Number 3(44)/2025, pp. 138-155.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2025.3.138

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Number of downloads: 182

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Between Legal Theory and Ideology. Introduction

Prof. UŚ dr hab. Sławomir TKACZ

University of Silesia in Katowice

Language: Polish

Published: Number 3(36)/2023, pp. 5-8.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2023.3.5

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Number of downloads: 385

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Judges’ Virtues and Vices: Outline of a Research Agenda for Legal Theory

Prof. UG dr hab. Tomasz Widłak

University of Gdańsk

Abstract: This article focuses on the issue of applicability of virtue theory to legal theory in civil-law (statutory) jurisdictions and suggests research areas and problems in that respect. The author starts with an assumption that the notion of “virtue” and virtue ethics should be used for the purposes of legal theory starting from references to judicial ethics and normative theory of judicial decision-making. This approach looks especially promising for the purpose of systematizing the chaotic moral language that is being currently used in Poland in reference to judges, their skills, and qualities of their character, which in turn may lead to formulating an explanatory and normative theory of the judicial role that better addresses the observable deficiencies of legal deontology. The author suggests research that could proceed from interpretatively uncovering what are believed to be specific judicial virtues and vices, considering different aspects of the wider Polish and European legal culture of civil law countries (included but not limited to legal and ethical standards, public discourse, legal and other literature, historical and fictional examples, and role models). With respect to judicial ethics, existing virtue theories, including non-eudaimonistic ones, may be examined for the purpose of identifying the model of virtue best suited to the particular nature of the judicial profession. The aretaic (rather than deontological or consequentialist) perspective may enable legal scholarship to take a new path in the debate on the status and qualities of the judiciary, including the problems relating to judicial independence and the selection of candidates for judicial offices.

Keywords: virtue, virtue ethics, aretaic theory, judicial virtues, juristic virtues, virtue jurisprudence, judicial character

Language: English

Received: 31.05.2019
Accepted: 02.12.2019

Published: Number 2(20)/2019, pp. 51-62.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2019.2.51

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Number of downloads: 849

The Political in the Polish Analytical Legal Theory

Dr Michał Stambulski

University of Wrocław

Abstract: The article examines the concept of the political in the Polish analytical theory of law. This subject was not a direct object of considerations of the authors who worked in this vein. However, the legitimisation of the legal system, sources of law, and the interpretation of the constitution can be considered as problems related to the political. They give rise to the issues surrounding the political within the Polish analytical theory of law. When these problems are considered from the perspective of analytical theory, a vision of the desired society emerges. Frank admission to the problems of the political in analytical theory opens up a new field of research. However, this requires theoreticians of law to change the language they habitually use. Such an opening implies the need to introduce the language of political philosophy within the theory of law and to develop new criteria for validating theoretical statements.

Keywords: theory of law, the political, legitimacy, sources of law, constitutional interpretation

Language: Polish

Received: 25.06.2018
Accepted: 06.09.2018

Published: Number 3(18)/2018, pp. 64-73.

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Number of downloads: 382

On Possible Applications of Paul Ricoeur’s Thought in Legal Theory

Dr Marcin Pieniążek

Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski Krakow University

English abstract: The paradigm of legal positivism, historically the most important attempt at turning law into science, has been subject to thorough criticism in past decades. The criticism has concerned the most important features of legal positivism, and especially the assumption of separation of law and morality, the dogma of statue being the only source of law, and the linguistic methods of interpreting legal texts. With a crisis of the positive paradigms, the demand for new, humanistic grounds for analysing philosophical and legal questions is intensifying. This is the reason for this article’s attempt to point to the application of Paul Ricoeur’s achievements to the key questions of the philosophy of law. It must be emphasised that his works, and especially Soimême comme un autre, may serve as a foundation for a philosophy of law rejecting the problematic claims about the dualism of being and obligation, the distinction of descriptive and prescriptive languages, and also the separation of law and morality. Thanks to this, the legal topos pacta sunt servanda (agreements must be kept) finds a reinforcement in the ontology of the subject applying law and can be understood as an ethically significant pattern of identity of the self. Equally fruitful seems the possibility of combining the questions of the ontology of the subject applying law with the question of a legal text and its interpretation. The assumption of Ricoeur’s perspective leads to a reduction in the distance between the legal text and its addressee, emphasised by the critics of legal positivism. This rapprochement becomes possible thanks to the connection of the question of the narrative that a legal text is with the question of narrativisation of the subject (i.e. the interpreter of a legal text), being itself in the ipse sense, i.e. applying the law.

Keywords: Paul Ricoeur, legal positivism, legal interpretation

Language: English

Published: Number 1(10)/2015, pp. 79-88

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2015.1.79

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Number of downloads: 614

Are we all feminists now’’? The Challenge of Feminist Jurisprudence to Traditional Legal Theory

Dr Lidia Rodak

University of Silesia

English abstract: The potential of Feminist Jurisprudence is mainly built on its criticism of Traditional Jurisprudence. Through the deconstruction of the latter’s main categories such as objectivity, justice, equality, and rationality, Feminist Jurisprudence aims to demonstrate that Traditional Jurisprudence tends to mask inequality, exclusion and lack of recognition rather than beingable to bring about change or provide the values under research. What is more, FJ indicates a wide range of topics that are not explored by Traditional Jurisprudence and thus have nochance to be dealt with using traditional tools. As a result, Feminist Jurisprudence provides a separate language, a different epistemology and methodological tools that can broaden access to justice including all subjects by giving them recognition. What follows from thesetwo approaches to jurisprudence and two distinct sets of epistemological assumptions is a different understanding of the subject and a different vision of social relations. As Feminist Jurisprudence convincingly shows, traditional law, with its inclination for objectivity defends legal norms as part of the legal and social order rather than an individual autonomy and integrity of subjects. In this paper I would like to suggest a middle-way solution going beyondthe dualistic categories of objectivity and subjectivity. The proposal calls for a deep structuralchange of the legal discourse as the only one that really matters from the feminist point of view.

Keywords: Feminist Jurisprudence, traditional jurisprudence, objectivity, subjectivity

Language: Polish

Published: Number 1(8)/2014, pp. 67-76

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Number of downloads: 447

On Legal Theory and Philosophy in Poland and the Polish Section of IVR

Dr Tomasz Bekrycht

University of Łódź

Language: English

Published: Number 1(4)/2012, pp. 126-130.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2012.1.126

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Classics of Modern Legal Philosophy and Theory

Scholars from Poland and around the world who shaped legal theory and philosophy – and, with each of them, texts published in the journal that concern their thought or closely related themes. All articles are free to read in open access.

World classics of modern legal philosophy and theory

Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832)

English philosopher, jurist and social reformer, the founder of utilitarianism and a forerunner of modern legal positivism. Themes from this current are gathered in the Legal Positivism collection.

John Austin (1790–1859)

English jurist and legal theorist, the founder of analytical positivism and of the conception of law as the command of a sovereign backed by sanction. Stanley L. Paulson writes on this current in his study The Core of the Idea of Legal Positivism.

Gustav Radbruch (1878–1949)

German legal philosopher and politician, author of the famous formula under which statutory lawlessness yields to supra-statutory justice. Bartosz Szyler devotes a study to the antinomies of his idea of law.

Hans Kelsen (1881–1973)

Austrian jurist and legal philosopher, the creator of the pure theory of law and of normativism. Around the pure theory and the basic norm the journal has published a translation of Stanley L. Paulson and a reconstruction of Kelsen’s discussion with Jerzy Wróblewski; see the Legal Positivism collection.

Adolf Reinach (1883–1917)

German philosopher and jurist, a representative of the phenomenology of law, author of the conception of the a priori foundations of civil law and of the theory of social acts.

Alf Ross (1899–1979)

Danish jurist and legal philosopher, a leading representative of Scandinavian realism and of the predictive account of legal validity. A kindred current of sociological jurisprudence is presented by Aleksander Olaf Szpojankowski in his text on Roscoe Pound.

Lon L. Fuller (1902–1978)

American legal philosopher, a representative of the non-positivist current, author of the conception of the inner morality of law and a participant in the famous debate with H.L.A. Hart on the connection between law and morality. These themes are taken up in the Law and Morality collection.

Herbert L.A. Hart (1907–1992)

British legal philosopher, the leading representative of twentieth-century legal positivism, author of the conception of the rule of recognition and of the union of primary and secondary rules. The journal has published a translation of Hart’s lecture, a study by Andrzej Grabowski and an analysis of the rule of recognition.

John Rawls (1921–2002)

American political and social philosopher, author of the theory of justice as fairness. Wojciech Ciszewski analyses his conception in the journal.

Jürgen Habermas (1929–2026)

German philosopher and sociologist, a representative of social philosophy, the creator of the theory of communicative action and of the conception of deliberative democracy.

Ronald Dworkin (1931–2013)

American legal philosopher, the foremost critic of positivism, author of the conception of legal principles, integrity and law as an interpretive practice. Texts in this current are gathered in the Legal Positivism collection.

Joseph Raz (1939–2022)

British legal philosopher of Israeli origin, a representative of exclusive positivism, author of the service conception of legal authority and of the theory of practical reasons. Beata Polanowska-Sygulska analyses his moral philosophy in a two-part series.

John Finnis

Australian legal philosopher, the leading representative of contemporary natural law theory, author of the conception of basic human goods and practical reasonableness. Michał Sopiński analyses his thought in the journal.

Robert Alexy

German legal philosopher, author of the theory of principles as optimisation requirements, of the weighing formula and of a non-positivist account of law. Milena Korycka reconstructs his conception in the journal.

Polish classics of modern legal philosophy and theory

Leon Petrażycki (1867–1931)

Polish and Russian scholar, the creator of the psychological theory of law, of the conception of intuitive law, imperative-attributive emotions and the policy of law. Hanna Dębska devotes a study to his career.

Jerzy Lande (1886–1954)

Polish legal theorist and philosopher, a pupil and the most important continuator of Leon Petrażycki, author of works in the theory and sociology of law.

Czesław Znamierowski (1888–1967)

Polish philosopher and legal theorist, the creator of the theory of constructive norms and thetic acts, and a forerunner of the analysis of conventional acts in law.

Czesław Martyniak (1906–1939)

Polish legal philosopher, a representative of Thomistic legal philosophy and of the natural-law critique of Kelsen’s normativism. Murdered by the German occupier in 1939.

Stanisław Ehrlich (1907–1997)

Polish theorist of law and politics, a scholar of pluralism, interest groups and group norms.

Grzegorz Leopold Seidler (1913–2004)

Polish scholar of the theory of state and law and of the history of political and legal doctrines.

Kazimierz Opałek (1918–1995)

Polish legal theorist and philosopher, a forerunner of analytical reflection on directives, norms and subjective rights.

Zygmunt Ziembiński (1920–1996)

Polish legal theorist and philosopher, the creator of the Poznań school of legal theory, author of works on the logic of norms, the conception of coupled norms and the analysis of legal language.

Józef Nowacki (1923–2005)

Polish legal theorist, a representative of analytical legal theory, a scholar of the rule of law, general clauses and the „appropriate” application of provisions.

Jerzy Wróblewski (1926–1990)

Polish legal theorist, the creator of an original paradigm of legal interpretation and application (the clarificative theory of interpretation); among his continuators is Marek Zirk-Sadowski.

Wiesław Lang (1928–2016)

Polish legal theorist, a scholar of legal validity and of the relation between law and morality. These themes are gathered in the Law and Morality collection.

Maciej Zieliński (1940–2020)

Polish legal theorist, the creator of the derivational conception of legal interpretation (omnia sunt interpretanda). Agnieszka Choduń presents it in the journal.

The influence of Marxism on the interpretation of law in Poland (some remarks concerning the theory of legal interpretation by Jerzy Wróblewski)

Dr hab. Joanna Helios, prof. UWr

Dr hab. Wioletta Jedlecka, prof. UWr

University of Wrocław

English abstract: The aim of this article is an attempt to conceptualize Jerzy Wroblewski’s theory of legal interpretation in the context of examining the influence of Marxism on interpretative practices. One of the legal theorists who undertook the task of demonstrating that Jerzy Wroblewski’s theory of interpretation is characterized by a philosophical stance rooted in the adoption of Marxist premises as the foundational philosophical assumptions underlying theoretical activities in legal science is Zbigniew Pulka. This article discusses three topics: (1) the Marxist philosophical stance – Marxist axiology, (2) people’s legal interpretation, (3) the clarificatory concept of interpretation.

Keywords: interpretation, Marxism, communism, J. Wróblewski, clarificatory concept of interpretation

Language: English

Published: Number 3(44)/2025, pp. 7-19.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2025.3.7

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Number of downloads: 226

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Maurice Hauriou’s Theory of the Institution: Legal Institutionalism and the Science of the State

Mgr Cezary Węgliński

University of Warsaw

English abstract: The aim of this paper aims is to reconstruct the original context, the characteristics and the main assumptions of M. Hauriou’s theory of the institution as one of the most coherent and comprehensive examples of legal institutionalism. By means of critical source analysis, the paper presents the basic elements of the notion of the institution together with its ontological and epistemological assumptions concerning both the very concept of law and legal methodology. The second part of the paper presents the critical approach expressed in Hauriou’s theory towards some core concepts of public and constitutional law by opposition to traditional, normativist and positivist approaches to constitutionalism. Hauriou’s work, despite its importance as indirect inspiration for contemporary doctrines of constitutional pluralism, is nowadays barely present in European legal science discourse. The last part of the paper is therefore dedicated to some closing remarks on current relevance of the theory of the institution with particular focus on the challenges of increasing pluralism of legal orders.

Keywords: legal institutionalism, theory of the institution, Maurice Hauriou, constitutional pluralism, supra-constitutionality, legal theory, sociology of law

Language: English

Published: Number 3(32)/2022, pp. 88-102

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2022.3.88

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Number of downloads: 525

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