Search Results for: legal interpretation

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: 646

Does American jurisprudence have any rules of interpretation of Constitution?

Dr Anna Tomza

University of Łódź

English abstract: The most discussed issue in the theory of law is the problem of its interpretation, and main question in this topic is – how to make a proper interpretation? The American common-law, opposite the European theory of law, seems not to have general rules of interpretation, but only the idea of proper interpretation. Also the methodology of statutory interpretation is some kind of the judge-made law. As Henry M. Hart said „The hard truth of the matter is that American courts have no intelligible, generally accepted, and consistently applied theory of statutory interpretation”. According to this, currently the question focuses on finding the generally rules of interpretation, which should be some kind of canons of the statutory interpretation. This article tries to give the answer to the question: „if American jurisprudence has any rules of interpretation of law?”.

Keywords: American jurisprudence, legal interpretation, rules of interpretation, Constitution

Language: Polish

Published: Number 2(9)/2014, pp. 125-133

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Number of downloads: 381

Uniformity of judicature and paradigm of judicial interpretation (in light of clara non sunt interpretanda rule)

Dr Tomasz Grzybowski

Supreme Administrative Court

English abstract: A subject of the article is uniformity of judicial interpretation in the context of two rules of interpretation, namely a clara non sunt interpretanda rule and an omnia sunt interpretanda rule challenging first mentioned method. The author points out that taking into consideration omnia sunt interpretanda rule, i.e. order to perform interpretation in every case, may lead to disintegration of judicial interpretation and as a consequence destabilization of judicature in general. Main thesis of the article is that institutional conceptualization of the clara non sunt interpretanda rule is an answer to this threat, because application of this rule enhances the argument from precedent in judicature. According to abovementioned version of clara non sunt interpretanda rule, legal text is considered as obvious and needs no interpretation if its meaning is certain in previous judicial interpretation, e.g. there is line of precedents or preliminary ruling. However it must be underlined that clara non sunt interpretanda rule is not unquestionable. It is a defeasible argument in judicial discourse; it only changes an argumentation burden which does not rest on the one who refers to this rule, but on the one who challenges the rule (wants to perform interpretation).

Keywords: judicial interpretation, clara non sunt interpretanda, omnia sunt interpretanda

Language:Polish

Published: Number 2(7)/2013, pp. 25-37

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Number of downloads: 388

The ways of understanding creative (constructive) interpretation

Dr Olgierd Bogucki

University of Szczecin

English abstract: The purpose of this paper is to analyse the notion of creative interpretation (of any text, especially creative interpretation of a legal text). The author points out that there are two different meanings of the expression “creative interpretation”. The first one can be called “ontological” and the second one – “methodological”. A given interpretation is ontologically creative when it creates a new object (which is a new meaning of some sort) and it is methodologically creative when it is established without applying any rules. Different theoretic approaches to legal interpretation presuppose different relations between ontological creativeness and methodological creativeness. The article explores some of them. The main thesis of the article is that when we say that a given interpretation is ontologically creative, we do not need to say it is methodologically creative (and vice versa).

Keywords: legal interpretation, interpretation ontologically creative, interpretation methodologically creative

Language: Polish

Published: Number 1(6)/2013, pp. 21-33.

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Number of downloads: 446

Legal Databases and Their Functions in the Process of Interpreting and Applying the Law

Dr Wiesław Staśkiewicz, Prof. dr hab. Tomasz Stawecki

University of Warsaw

English abstract: This article deals with the implications of the widespread practice of use of legal databases in Polish judicial practice. Apart from the undeniable positive effects of development of an electronic civilization, the article deals with the negative effects of use of databases. This is because a conflict arises between the possibilities offered by the latest technology in the form of easy access to legal texts, commentaries and thousands of judicial rulings, and the unique historical experience of the judiciary in a former communist country, methods of legal interpretation sustained by legal positivism, and domination by a syllogistic model for application of the law. All results in dysfunction of legal databases. A kind of “hybrid interpretation of law” is formed, which is a combination of a legacy, the effects of transformation of the economy and the system, as well as the new rules of law, on the one hand, and the ideology of bound judicial decision on the other. The nature of the “hybrid interpretation of law” is the infinite scope for citing judicial rulings and commentaries available in the databases without taking a broader theoretical view – without supporting arguments, and so the citing of a ruling has become the basis for adjudication. The question of whether the possibilities that electronic databases offer will cause interpretation of this kind to turn into a new form of legal rhetoric, or whether it will remain merely a means of adaptation of the discretionary power of judges to legal positivism doctrine, and thus the sophism of the period of transformation, remains an open one.

Keywords: legal database, legal interpretation, hybrid interpretation of law, legal positivism, syllogistic model for application of the law

Language: English

Published: Number 1(4)/2012, pp. 84-105.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2012.1.84

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Number of downloads: 708

Critical analysis of a judicial discourse on the legal situation of homosexuals in the light of Article 18 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland

Mgr Wojciech Zomerski

University of Wroclaw

English abstract: In this paper, I make an attempt to conduct a critical analysis of judicial discourse devoted to the situation of homosexual persons in the light of Article 18 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland. In order to show how unequal treatment of homosexuals is being reproduced, I analyze selected rulings of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal, Supreme Court and administrative courts. On the methodological level I refer to the Critical Discourse Analysis. In the result, the analysis of chosen rulings is conducted in the attempt to spot linguistic maneuvers leading to the reproduction of unequal treatment of homosexuals. Thus, in the course of this analysis I apply such notions as interpellation (Althusser), ideology (Žižek), doxa and habitus (Bourdieu). On the whole, I argue that the flawed interpretation of Article 18 is the result of referring to established judicial standpoint, illegitimate departures from linguistic interpretation, or many kinds of concealment and counterfactual premises. The origins of doxa that is the basis of such practice, might be seen in the Catholic doctrine which is based on the assumption of unnatural character of homosexuality and subordination of human sexuality to aims of procreation. In the end, I come to the conclusion that unmasking of axiological presuppositions underlying interpretation of the analyzed provision would fundamentally change the character of discussion devoted to the legal situation of homosexuals, satisfying Habermasian standards of deliberative democracy, and it might eventually lead to recognition of one-sex relations by legislator.

Keywords: homosexuality, article 18 of the Constitution, Critical Discourse Analysis, discrimination, ideology, doxa, interpellation

Language: Polish

Received: 13.03.2017
Accepted: 03.05.2017

Published: Number 2(15)/2017, pp. 80-97.

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Number of downloads: 517

The ius et lex distinction in the contemporary legal science

Dr Maciej Pichlak

University of Wroclaw

English abstract: The aim of the paper is to clarify the concepts of ius and lex, as well as to indicate main interpretations of these concepts in the contemporary jurisprudence. For the concepts of ius and lex are not only of historical significance (as used in the legal discourse of the ancient Rome), but they are present in the entire history of the Western legal culture – since ancient times until today. Owing to this rich historical heritage, as well as to the very nature of the discussed concepts, it is impossible to offer classical definitions of ius and/or lex. Therefore, a proper analysis of their meaning will lead to determination of their ‘connotative field’: a map of associations and theories related to these concepts.

In order to realize this task, the paper offers three basic typologies that allow to order mutual relations between existing theoretical standpoints in this field. The first typology concerns a practical function of ius in the legal order. We can distinguish here theories which perceive such a function as mainly negative, positive, or mediating (optimalising). The second typology treats on the sources of binding force of ius. One can indicate positivistic, legalnaturalistic and hermeneutic intepretation of this problem. Finally, the third typology regards mutual relations between ius and lex, which may be described either as hierarchical, or as functionally differentiated. These considerations allow to conclude that the usefulness of such a dualistic way of thinking about the law is ever persisting. Within this perspective the legal order is conceived as containing statutory law (lex) as well as nonwritten binding standards, independent from law–making authorities (ius).

Keywrods: ius et lex, legal culture, law beyond statutory law, dualism of law

Language: Polish

Received: 09.03.2017
Accepted: Załączniki 03.05.2017

Published: Number 2(15)/2017, pp. 49-59.

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Number of downloads: 1,015

Some remarks about the application of the cognitive linguistics’ tools for the differentiation between extensive interpretation and analogy

Prof. UŁ dr hab. Sylwia Wojtczak

University of Łódź

English abstract: The paper is the proposal of the discussion upon the utility of the cognitive linguistics’ tools for legal application, especially within the field of legal interpretation and legal reasoning. Cognitive linguistics is the school of linguistics and cognitive science, developing from 1970s of the XX century, researching on language and mind and their intersection. The analysis of the instances originating in the Polish law in force, made by the means of different concepts of cognitive linguistics (prototypes, radial categories, idealized cognitive models, conceptual metaphors) is here the basis to formulate some postulates concerning the way of understanding and differentiation between extensive interpretation and analogy. The instances and postulates simultaneously let one distinguish those linguistic changes, which inevitably occur in time, and which should be recognised as the domain of linguistic interpretation.

Keywords: cognitive linguistics, interpretation, extensive interpretation, legal reasoning, analogy

Language: Polish

Received: 29.09.2016
Accepted: 31.10.2016

Published: Number 1(14)/2017, pp. 125-140.

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Number of downloads: 603

Different texts – similar interpretation. Interpretation of law and interpretation of the Bible

Mgr Bartłomiej Dębski

English abstract: This paper concerns similarity of interpretation of law and interpretation of the Bible. It focuses on the same mechanisms grounding both the principles of interpretation of law and interpretation of the Bible. First, similar textual principles of interpretation are briefly described. Second, extra-textual principles of interpretation are given. In the second part some shortcomings of legal extra-textual principles of interpretation are also indicated. At the end of the text, a theory that allows to disregard these shortcomings is proposed.

Keywords: legal interpretation, Bible, interpretation of the Bible, dynamic interpretation

Language: Polish

Published: Number 1(12)/2016, p. 5-11.

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Number of downloads: 463

Fish – Dworkin debate as an example of dispute about practice of interpretation of law

Dr Michał Pełka

University of Warsaw

English abstract: The aim of the article is to critically asses the theories of interpretation developed by two prominent philosophers, namely Stanley Fish and Ronald Dworkin. After first describing and reconstructing their ideas the paper then identifies problems concerning the stance according to which everything in applying law depends on interpretation. The critic is based on the Ludwig’s Wittgenstein remark that there must be grasping the rule (or more broadly a meaning of any word) which is not interpretation, otherwise we end up in regressus ad infinitum fallacy. Paper’s main claim is that although the theory of R. Dworkin is not fully free from defects it has nevertheless more explanation power than the opponent’s propositions.

Keywords: legal interpretation, meaning, Stanley Fish, Ronald Dworkin, Ludwig Wittgenstein

Language: Polish

Published: Number 2(11)/2015, p. 86-105.

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Number of downloads: 659

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