Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland

English abstract: The article examines the way in which the Polish Constitutional Tribunal operates, which involves replacing its own process of interpreting the provisions under review by accepting the interpretation of another court. The objective of the article is to provide a theoretical account of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal’s conduct to the readers. Therefore, the concepts developed at the Poznan School of Theory of Law are used, namely the distinction between a provision of the law and a legal norm, as well as a distinction between pragmatic and nonpragmatic interpretation. The role of the metatheory used to analyse the Tribunal’s conduct is also played by Robert B. Brandom’s analytic pragmatism. Analytic pragmatism allows the conclusion to be drawn that, through its activity, the Tribunal indicates 1) what an agent must do (within the legal practice) for the vocabulary of normative acts to mean something (PV-sufficiency), and 2) what vocabulary is sufficient to define those practices (VP-sufficiency). The practice of applying the law can be described with the use of the TOTE concept (Test-Operation-Test-Exit). In this case TOTE cycles are open-ended. Therefore, in its further practice, the Tribunal might indicate further practices-or-abilities which are sufficient for the vocabulary of normative acts to mean something.

Keywords: judicial practice, Constitutional Tribunal, analytic pragmatism, provision of the law, legal norm, application of the law

Language: English

Published: Number 2(35)/2023, pp. 65-76.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280//AFPiFS.2023.2.65

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Number of downloads: 313

This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution – Non Commercial – No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

Polish Academy of Sciences

English abstract: The article treats law & economics as a proposal of a theory of decision making in legal settings. It is emphasized that the distinction between two approaches in economic analysis of law: the neoclassical and the behavioral one, is made with reference to two different theories of decision making applied in the realm of each approach. The neoclassical approach is based on the theory of expected utility, whereas the behavioral one – on prospect theory. According to the scholars on both sides, application of decision theory might be helpful in influencing behavior by legal norms in a more sophisticated way. The claim of the article is that law & economics scholars misinterpret the assumptions and propositions of the theories and/or formulate excessive claims, if they argue that decision theoretical findings provide knowledge about the way in which people’s decisions are influenced by law.

Keywords: law & economics, theory of decision making, legal norm

Language: English

Published: Number 1(4)/2012, pp. 34-50.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2012.1.34

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Number of downloads: 538