interpretation

Legislative Materials in the Light of Polish and Spanish Law, Judicial Practice and Theoretical Literature

Mgr Paulina Konca

University of Silesia

Abstract: The purpose of the paper is to present a comparative analysis of the use of legislative materials in the process of statutory interpretation in Poland and Spain, by referring to statutes, theoretical literature and case law. The paper is divided into three parts. The first part shows that in difficult cases, when the text is not clear enough as an evidence of the legislator’s intention, other evidence should be sought, including the legislative materials. The second part delivers an analysis of the term ‘legislative materials’, followed by a study of particular examples of legislative materials, including bills and their justifications. It focuses especially on the issue of the Spanish exposiciones de motivos. Moreover, there is a reference to interpretative guidance contained in the legal regulations and to the ways in which legislative materials are used in case law. The third part of the paper responds, on the basis of Polish and Spanish theoretical literature, to some of the objections against the use of legislative materials, underlining its importance for the interpreting the law.

Keywords: legislative materials, legislative history, interpretation, intention, Spanish law, Polish law, ratio legis

Language: Original printed in Polish, English online translation

Received: 13.01.2018
Accepted: 19.04.2018

Published: Number 1(19)/2019, pp. 38-50

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2019.1.38ENG

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Number of downloads: 107

The Political Character of the (Theory of) Interpretation of Law. Stanley Fish’s Neo-pragmatist Perspective

Mgr Jakub Łakomy

University of Wrocław

Abstract: In this paper, I analyse the political character of the interpretation of law and the political nature of the theory of legal interpretation from Stanley Fish’s neo-pragmatist perspective. In the first part of the text, I define the concept of politics and the political, borrowing from Chantal Mouffe. I clearly distinguish between the political, politics, and policy; this article uses the first concept (the political). In the second part of the article, I characterize hermeneutic universalism as one of the approaches to the problem of legal interpretation.

In the third part, following the characteristics of the concepts of interpretive communities as defined by Stanley Fish, I draw conclusions about the political nature of the interpretation of law and the theory of the interpretation of law. In conclusion, I analyse the possibilities of building a theory of legal interpretation that internalises the inherently political character of knowledge by analyzing the concept of post-analytical philosophy proposed in literature by Andrzej Bator.

Keywords: jurisprudence, the political, neopragmatism, interpretive community, hermeneutic universalism, interpretation

Language: Polish

Received: 13.06.2018
Accepted: 13.08.2018

Published: Number 3(18)/2018, pp. 24-37.

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Number of downloads: 324

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: 287

The strategic principle and the maxim of selectivity – a new insight on Gricean implicatures in the law

Mgr Izabela Skoczeń

Jagiellonian University

English abstract In the present paper, I attempt to answer three questions. First, whether the classical Gricean version of the implicature theory can be applied to describe legal discourse. Second, I provide an outline of one of the most popular theories of the pragmatics of legal language. Namely, Andrei Marmor’s theory of strategic speech. Strategic speech occurs mostly in indeterminate contexts, which contain elements that license even contradictory pragmatic inferences. Next, I attempt to flesh out the problematic points of this account. Third, I attempt to formulate a descriptive model of the strategic selectivity of pragmatic elements in the law, that could face the objections to Marmor’s ideas.

Keywords: conversational implicature, Paul Grice, pragmatics, interpretation, strategic speech

Language: Polish

Received: 06.10.2016
Accepted: 10.12.2016

Published: Number 1(14)/2017, pp. 115-124.

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Number of downloads: 203