Ars aequi et boni, legal argumentation and the correct legal solution

Der Beitrag widmet sich den Anfängen rechtlicher Argumentation, die auf das römische Recht und, genauer, auf die republikanische Rechtswissenschaft zurückgehen. Ausgangspunkt ist die These von Stroux, dass das alte formalistische Paradigma in jener Zeit durch ein neueres verdrängt worden sei, in dem die Fairness eine prominente Rolle spielte, und dessen Begründung und Methode aus der griechischen Redekunst geschöpft worden sei. Neben Stroux steht Viehwegs Theorie einer topischen Jurisprudenz. Diese von Nichtjuristen formulierten Thesen werden konfrontiert mit der communis opinio doctorum, die von Schulz, Kaser und Wieacker repräsentiert wird. Es soll gezeigt werden, dass neuere Erkenntnisse in der Rechtstheorie eine nuanciertere Bewertung der Arbeiten von Stroux und Viehweg ermöglichen, die die Grundlagen der westlichen Rechtswissenschaft keineswegs in Frage stellen*).The National Research Foundation of South Africa (Grant specific unique reference number UID 85777).http://www.savigny-zeitschrift.com/en/sections/romanistische-abteilungam201

Hermeneutical Outlines in and of Dante’s Legal Theory

Based upon the concept of Law qualified in Monarchia, II.50, Dante was not only a general philosopher (a lover of knowledge) as well as a political disputant in his times, but also his primary contribution (not always obvious) in legal speculation could be demonstrated. In fact, if his thought reflected the platonic ordo sapientiae through a deep intersection between téchne and episteme (phronesis) toward a linguistic koiné, could we say the same thing on his concept of justice as a rational ars boni et aequi? This essay aims to depict Dante as legal theorist of his times and theorist of Justice beyond them, adopting the hermeneutical point of view, not just as an interest into textual interpretation but referring his use of language as form of life and his works an inexhaustible sources of education for legal philosophy

Axiology of Law and Human Rights: A Few Theoretical Remarks in the Perspective of Internal Integration of Legal Sciences

The aim of the article is to link two research problems. The first of them concerns the determination of the relationship between the axiology of law and human rights. The task of the second is a presentation of this relationship from the perspective of the internal integration of legal sciences. The article explains the mutual relations between the axiology of law and human rights. The following theses are proposed. The first is that human rights, due to their axiological character, are an integral part of the axiology of the entire legal system. At the level of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland, these are included in the rules of the state system. In essence, they contribute to building an integrated value system. The second thesis materializes in the statement that human rights integrate not only the branches of law, but also legal sciences. They are present in every branch of law, i.e. in constitutional, criminal and civil law, labour law, legal theory and international law. They become the subject of scientific reflection in various legal sciences. For these reasons, human rights perform very important functions in the internal integration of legal sciences. The third thesis concerns the level of international law. Human rights, through the European protection system, integrate the European legal space. The protection standards of the European Court of Human Rights play the main role. They contribute to building a common European axiological dimension of human rights

La pseudo-fallacia dell’argumentum (sub sub-genus) “ad hominem” quale enzima retoricamente onto-teleo-t(etico) per / dell’oratore

The paper provides to give a minimal contribution about a typical argumentation scheme which called "ad hominem". Especially, this mode of conduct a dialogue and arguing towards an opponent has been revisited by not long past approaches on Argumentation Theory with the aim to re-legitimate it in logical context and re-consider its consequences in terms of validity, consistence and alethic thinking. Ad hominem argument is part of rational discussion and informs audience about the coherence between speaker and his favored thesis

The Concept of Equity in Early-Modern European Legal Scholarship

In modern scholarship, the concept of equity is often assimilated with that of Aristotelian epieikeia, a process which serves to correct rules when, though their wording undoubtedly applies to a case, yet the outcome would be unjust, or the legislator would have never wanted the rule to be applied to such a case. My thesis deals with the early-modern origins of the association of equity and epieikeia in legal scholarship, and of its consequences for the doctrinal development of equity in the sixteenth and seventeenth century. I begin by showing that medieval legal writings on equity were almost completely unconcerned with epieikeia, and that the latter was only developed by philosophers and theologians. Legists and canonists developed a concept of equity that was unrelated – indeed mostly incompatible – with judicial discretion or the emendation of written rules. Thus, throughout the Middle Ages, there was almost no interaction between the writings of civil and canon lawyers on equity, and those of theologians on epieikeia. In the second chapter of my thesis, I show that the introduction of epieikeia in legal scholarship was the result of the influence of humanistic philology over the writings of humanist jurists, and argue that it caused the majority of early-modern authors to depart from medieval scholarship on equity, re-modelling instead equity as a doctrine of interpretation of the law beyond its letter in accordance with the intentions of the legislator. The final part of my thesis argues that the development of equity as epieikeia in legal scholarship broke down the barrier that had hitherto divided theological and legal writings on equity. Indeed, from the late sixteenth century onwards, legal and theological writings on equity were connected to such an extent that many later authors treated these two branches of scholarship as belonging to one, equally authoritative body of learning on the same topic.Arts and Humanities Research Counci

A Corpus Approach to Roman Law Based on Justinian’s Digest

Traditional philological methods in Roman legal scholarship such as close reading and strict juristic reasoning have analysed law in extraordinary detail. Such methods, however, have paid less attention to the empirical characteristics of legal texts and occasionally projected an abstract framework onto the sources. The paper presents a series of computer-assisted methods to open new frontiers of inquiry. Using a Python coding environment, we have built a relational database of the Latin text of the Digest, a historical sourcebook of Roman law compiled under the order of Emperor Justinian in 533 CE. Subsequently, we investigated the structure of Roman law by automatically clustering the sections of the Digest according to their linguistic profile. Finally, we explored the characteristics of Roman legal language according to the principles and methods of computational distributional semantics. Our research has discovered an empirical structure of Roman law which arises from the sources themselves and complements the dominant scholarly assumption that Roman law rests on abstract structures. By building and comparing Latin word embeddings models, we were also able to detect a semantic split in words with general and legal sense. These investigations point to a practical focus in Roman law which is consistent with the view that ancient law schools were more interested in training lawyers for practice rather than in philosophical neatness.</jats:p

Badges of trade: the protection of trade marks and related intangibles in unfair competition law

PhDThe increasing efforts within the European Union to harmonise intellectual property law also lead to the approximation of some aspects of unfair competition law. Despite these efforts, common standards for unfair competition law are still not present. To find a common legal norm defining the scope of protection of trade marks and related intangibles in unfair competition law, similarities and differences between various national unfair competition provisions are explored in the light of the Paris Convention. Setting aside the clear examples of tortious behaviour in competition, the difficulty surrounding the definition of clear norms in other unfair competition cases is recognised. Protection of intangible subject matter on an other basis than tort can lead to idiosyncratic and circular reasoning. It is shown that property theories and policy decisions have to be dismissed as the sole basis in the determination whether protection is due. The author describes how a legal concept bearing close resemblance to tort can overcome these problems. He describes and argues for an action for 'malign competition', based on the concept of unjust enrichment. In examining selected legal systems in more detail, several key aspects of the proposed action appear to be in operation already, albeit not recognised. Selected cases from several jurisdictions are subsequently tested according to the model of the proposed action for malign competition. It is demonstrated that the legal reasoning is more satisfactory, offering a clear norm and takingway the old idiosyncrasies. Where the outcome on the basis of the same facts is different, it is shown that this is the result of a more satisfactory implementation of the notions of preemption and equitable remuneration than is currently employed. The fact that the principle of unjust enrichment is universally recognised will in the opinion of the author advance the prospects for future harmonisat

Der realistische Begriff des Rechts

The law is an extremely complex phenomenon. It is very difficult to determine it precisely as the complete comprehension and ultimate definition of the law are beyond human capabilities. Also, the law never coincides with its concept, nor does the concept of the law coincide with its definition. This fact shows that the real human capabilities for the comprehension, determination and definition of the law are very limited and the limits are unreliable. The concept of the law is relative as well, which is why all the definitions of the law are also relative. The concept and the definition of the law are also relative because they are of necessity subjective. It is for this reason that they are never truthful. However, even when they are not truthful, they are always useful. Because of these essential cognitive shortcomings and limitations, the law is determined and defined realistically – in a conventional and operative manner – whenever it is possible to do so. Additional difficulties are created by the fact that the number of conventional concepts and definitions of the law is almost limitless. Fortunately, only a number of them, considered operative, are used in the law. And all this because of a possible usefulness. Should the law be useful, then its realistic concept can be determined by the establishment of its common characteristics. On the basis of having at its disposal the mentioned common characteristics, the concept of the law can be operationally determined in both the expanded sense and the restricted sense. Also, it is possible to tell the difference between the three main layers in the concept of the law: complete (perfect), incomplete (imperfect) and unfinished (illusionary or naked) law. Obviously, the realistically determined concept of the law is not one-sided, nor is it monolithic, but complex, detailed and as a whole composed of layers of different degrees of being legal. They are used to finely tune the ordering of the relationships between different importance and the degree of the conflict and, which is also important, to legally regulate even those social areas that would otherwise be exclusively regulated with the state or with the social norms. Otherwise, even the Ten Commandments alone would be insufficient to regulate all human relationships. However, the law did not come into being out of leisure time, but out of dire human need to protect the society from self-destruction. Contrary to the realistic concept of the law, there also exist its idealistic, idealized and ideal concepts. However, the idealistic concept of the law is inoperative, the idealized concept of the law is not correct, while the ideal concept of the law is out of human reach.Pravo predstavlja izuzetno složenu pojavu. Njega je veoma teško točno odrediti, jer su potpuna spoznaja i konačno definiranje prava izvan ljudskih mogućnosti. Također, pravo se nikada ne podudara sa svojim pojmom, niti se pojam prava podudara sa svojom definicijom. Ta činjenica pokazuje da su stvarne ljudske mogućnosti za spoznavanje, određivanje i definiranje prava veoma ograničene, a granice nepouzdane. Pojam prava je i relativan, zbog čega su relativne i sve definicije prava. Pojam i definicija prava su relativni i zbog toga što su nužno subjektivni. Zbog toga oni nikada nisu istiniti. Ali, i kada nisu istiniti, oni su uvijek korisni. Zbog tih bitnih spoznajnih nedostataka i ograničenja, pravo se određuje i definira realistički – na konvencionalan i operativan način – kad god je to moguće. Dodatnu teškoću predstavlja činjenica da konvencionalnih pojmova i definicija prava ima gotovo beskonačno. Srećom, u pravu se koristi samo nekoliko njih koje se smatraju operativnima. I sve to zbog moguće korisnosti. Ako pravo treba biti korisno, tada se njegov realistički pojam može odrediti utvrđivanjem njegovih zajedničkih svojstava. Na osnovu raspoloživosti navedenih zajedničkih svojstava, pojam prava može se operativno odrediti u proširenom i suženom smislu. Također, mogu se razlikovati tri glavna sloja u pojmu prava: potpuno (savršeno), nepotpuno (nesavršeno) i nedovršeno (prividno ili golo) pravo. Očigledno, realistički određen pojam prava nije jednoobrazan ni monolitan, već složen, iznijansiran i u cijelosti satkan od slojeva različitih stupnjeva pravnosti. Njima se fino podešava uređivanje odnosa različitog značaja i stupnja konfliktnosti i, što je također važno, na odgovarajući način se pravno reguliraju i ona društvena područja koja bi isključivo bila regulirana državnim ili društvenim normama. Da nije tako, i Deset božjih zapovijedi bi bilo dovoljno za uređivanje svih ljudskih odnosa. Ali, pravo nije nastalo iz dokolice, već iz prijeke ljudske potrebe za očuvanjem društva od samouništenja. Nasuprot realističkom pojmu prava postoji njegov idealistički, idealizirani i idealni pojam. Ali, idealistički pojam prava nije operativan, idealizirani pojam prava nije točan, dok je idealni pojam prava ljudski nedostižan.Le droit est un phénomène particulièrement complexe. Il est très difficile à déterminer avec précision puisqu’une pleine compréhension et la définition ultime du droit sont au-delà des capacités humaines. Également, le droit ne coïncide jamais avec son concept ni le concept de droit ne coïncide avec sa définition. Ce fait montre que les capacités réelles de l’homme de connaître, déterminer et définir le droit sont très limitées et que les limites sont peu fiables. Le concept de droit est en outre relatif ; c’est pourquoi toute définition du droit est relative aussi. Le concept et la définition du droit sont également relatifs parce que nécessairement subjectifs. C’est pourquoi ils ne sont jamais fidèles. Néanmoins, même quand ils ne sont pas fidèles, ils sont utiles. En raison des ces défauts et limites cognitives essentielles, le droit est déterminé et défini réalistement – de façon conventionnelle et opérationnelle – à chaque fois que cela est possible. Une difficulté supplémentaire réside dans le fait qu’il existe un nombre quasiment illimité de concepts et de définitions conventionnels du droit. Heureusement, seulement quelques- unes, considérées comme opérationnelles, sont utilisées dans le droit. Et tout ceci à cause d’une potentielle utilité. Si le droit doit être utile, alors son concept réaliste peut être déterminé en établissant ses caractéristiques communes. S’appuyant sur la disponibilité des caractéristiques communes mentionnées, le concept du droit peut être déterminé opérationnellement dans un sens élargi et un sens étroit. Egalement, il est possible de distinguer trois couches principales dans le concept de droit : complet (parfait), incomplet (imparfait) et inachevé (apparent ou nu). A l’évidence, le concept de droit déterminé de manière réaliste n’est ni unilatéral ni monolithique mais complexe, nuancé et dans l’ensemble tissé de couches à différents degrés de légalité. Elles servent à accorder les rapports de signification et de degré de conflictualité différents et, ce qui est également important, à réguler légalement même les domaines sociaux qui autrement seraient régulés exclusivement par le biais des normes d’État ou sociales. Sinon, même les Dix Commandements suffiraient à réguler tous les rapports humains. Cependant, le droit n’est pas né du loisir, mais d’un besoin terrible de protéger la société de l’auto-destruction. Contrairement au concept réaliste de droit, il existe également son concept idéaliste, idéalisé et idéal. Cependant, le concept idéaliste du droit n’est pas opérationnel, le concept idéalisé n’est pas correct, tandis que le concept idéal du droit est hors de la portée de l’homme.Das Recht stellt ein immens vielfältiges Phänomen dar. Ihn präzise festzulegen entpuppt sich als unsäglich schwierig, denn eine lückenlose Erkenntnis sowie endgültige Definition des Rechts liegt jenseits des menschlichen Vermögens. Zudem geht weder das Recht mit dessen Begriff konform, noch tut es der Begriff des Rechts mit eigener Bestimmung. Dieser Tatbestand lässt durchblicken, die wahre menschliche Befähigung zum Erkennen, Determinieren sowie Definieren des Rechts sei höchst begrenzt, wobei sich ebendiese Schranken als unzuverlässig erzeigen. Die Notion des Rechts ist ebenso relativ, weswegen hiernach sämtliche Begriffsbestimmungen des Rechts relativ sind. Der Begriff einschließlich der Definition des Rechts ist auch aufgrund der ihnen notwendigerweise innewohnenden Subjektivität relativ. Aus diesem Grund sind sie niemals wahrheitsgetreu. Allerdings, auch wenn sie der Wahrheit nicht entsprechen, sind sie stets von Nützlichkeit. Wegen der angebrachten essenziellen erkenntnismäßigen Unzulänglichkeiten und Limitierungen wird das Recht realistisch bestimmt und definiert – in einer konventionellen bzw. operativen Manier – wann immer dies durchführbar ist. Zusätzliche Erschwernisse werden von der Tatsache geschaffen, dass die Zahl der gebräuchlichen Begriffe und Definitionen des Rechts schier unermesslich ist. Glücklicherweise werden lediglich etliche, als operativ angesehene, im Bereich von Recht eingesetzt. Und all dies der denkbaren Nützlichkeit halber. Sollte das Recht nützlich sein, dann lässt sich dessen realistischer Begriff per Gründung seiner gemeinsamen Wesenszüge festsetzen. Auf der Basis der vorhin angeschnittenen, ihm zu Gebote stehenden angehörigen Merkmale, kann der Begriff des Rechts operational determiniert werden, sowohl im erweiterten als auch im engeren Sinne. Ebenfalls ist der Unterschied erkennbar zwischen drei Hauptschichten in dem Begriff des Rechts: vollständiges Recht (vollkommen), unvollständiges Recht (unvollkommen) und unvollendetes Recht (scheinbar oder nackt). Augenscheinlich ist der realistischerweise bestimmte Begriff des Rechts weder einseitig noch monolithisch, stattdessen ist er komplex, detailliert und als Ganzes aus Schichten von ungleichem Rechtlichkeitsgrad zusammengestellt. Man gebraucht sie zur Feinabstimmung der Beziehungsordnung zwischen der unterschiedlichen Wichtigkeit und dem Grad des Konflikts, und, was genauso Gewicht hat, um sogar jene Gesellschaftszonen rechtmäßig zu regeln, die anderenfalls ausschließlich seitens der staatlichen bzw. gesellschaftlichen Normen geregelt würden. Ansonsten würden selbst die Zehn Gebote nicht genügen, um menschliche Verhältnisse in ihrer Gänze zu ordnen. Jedoch ist das Recht nicht als Freizeitaktivität entstanden, sondern im Gegenteil als unentbehrliches menschliches Bedürfnis nach Bewahrung der Menschheit vor Selbstauflösung. Der realistischen Notion des Rechts entgegengesetzt existieren parallel dessen idealistische, idealisierte und ideale Begriffe. Dabei gilt der idealistische Begriff als inoperativ, der idealisierte als inkorrekt, während der ideale Begriff außerhalb der menschlichen Reichweite liegt

Constitutional Law and Precedent

This collection examines case-based reasoning in constitutional adjudication; that is, how courts decide on constitutional cases by referring to their own prior case law and the case law of other national, foreign, and international courts. Argumentation based on judicial authority is now fundamental to the resolution of constitutional disputes. At the same time, it is the most common form of reasoning used by courts. This volume shows not only the strengths and weaknesses of such argumentation, but also its serious methodological shortcomings. The book is comparative in nature, with individual chapters examining similar problems that different courts have resolved in different ways. The research covers three types of courts; namely the civil law constitutional courts of Germany, Italy, Poland, Lithuania, and Hungary; the common law supreme courts of the United States, Canada, and Australia; and the European international courts represented by the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union. The authors are distinguished scholars from various countries who specialise in constitutional justice issues. This book will be of interest to legal theorists and practitioners, and will be especially insightful for constitutional court judges