On the implications of kelsen's doctrine of hierarchical structure
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Georg Henrik von Wright,Norm and Action (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963), vii (von Wright's emphasis).
Kelsen,Hauptprobleme der Staatsrechtslehre entwickelt aus der Lehre vom Rechtssatze [hereafter:HP] (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1911), repr. in 1923 with new “Foreword”, 237 (Kelsen's emphasis). (Rough English equivalent of Kelsen's title: “Main Problems in the Theory of Public Law, Developed from the Doctrine of the Legal Norm”).
Seeibid..
For some details see Stanley L. Paulson, “Hans Kelsen's Earliest Legal Theory: Critical Constructivism”,Modern Law Review (forthcoming).
SeeHP, supra n.2, “Foreword” to 2nd printing (1923), at pp.xii-xvi.
Merkl was already busy at work, before 1920, on theStufenbaulehre; see e.g. his paper, “Das doppelte Rechtsantlitz”,Juristische Blätter 47 (1918), 425–427, 444–447, 463–465, repr. inDie Wiener rechtstheoretische Schule, ed. Hans Klecatsky et al., 2 vols. [hereafter:WS I, WS II] (Vienna: Europa Verlag, 1968), vol. I, 1091–1113. (Rough English equivalent of Merkl's title: “The Two Faces of the Law”.) His most complete statement of the doctrine appears, however, much later; see A.J. Merkl, “Prolegomena einer Theorie des rechtlichen Stufenbaues” [hereafter: “Prolegomena”], inGesellschaft, Staat und Recht. Untersuchungen zur Reinen Rechtslehre, ed. Alfred Verdross (Vienna: Springer, 1931, repr. Vaduz, Liechtenstein: Topos, 1983), 252–294, repr.WS II, 1311–1361. (Rough English equivalent of Merkl's title: “Prolegoména to a Theory of the Hierarchical Structure of the Law”.)
See Kelsen,Allgemeine Staatslehre (Berlin: Julius Springer, 1925., repr. Bad Homburg v.d. Höhe: Max Gehlen, 1966), §§32–36 (pp.229–255), for the first full statement. (Rough English equivalent of Kelsen's title, with an eye to the content of the book: “General Constitutional Theory”.) The next major statement is found in H. Kelsen,Introduction to the Problems of Legal Theory [hereafter:LT] (first published in 1934, as the first edition of theReine Rechtslehre), trans. Bonnie Litschewski Paulson & Stanley L. Paulson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), at §31 (pp.63–75).
Thelocus classicus on sources of law in the English-language literature is John Salmond,Jurisprudence (London: Sweet & Maxwell, 1924, 7th ed.), ch.6. (The 7th edition was the last in Salmond's own hand.) Kelsen, however, was not enamoured of the doctrine of sources of law, arguing that “source” is shot through with ambiguity: see. e.g. Kelsen,Pure Theory of Law, 2nd edn. [hereafter:PTL], trans. Max Knight (Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1967). (First published in 1960).
[Hereafter:GTLS] (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1945).
My statement here represents a reading of Kelsen's and Merkl's texts, and not my own claim that legal norms ought to reflect the social functions of the law. On the differences between the logical properties of the legal norm and the social functions of the law, see generally Joseph Raz,The Authority of Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), at 163–179, esp. 165–168.
The most important exception to this rule is William Ebenstein,The Pure Theory of Law, trans. Charles H. Wilson (Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press, 1945, repr. New York: Rothman, 1969), ch.5. For a general overview of the English-language literature on Kelsen, see my “Short Annotated Bibliography of Secondary Literature in English”, inLT, supra n.7, at Appendix III, 145–153.
See Stanley L. Paulson, “The Neo-Kantian Dimension of Kelsen's Pure Theory of Law”,Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 12 (1992), 311–332.
Alf Ross suggests that it was the “empiristic climate” of America — where Kelsen lived from 1940 to his death in 1973 — that led Kelsen away from his earlier, neo-Kantian orientation: see Ross, Book Review: Kelsen,What is Justice?, inCalifornia Law Review 45 (1957), 564–570, at 564. While one certainly cannot deny the possibility of such an influence, the question of its significance remains. Kelsen's flirtation with empiricism and, in particular, with the philosophy of David Hume is traceable back to the 1930s, that is, to a point antedating his long period in America. And still earlier, it was his adoption in the 1920s of Merkl'sStufenbaulehre, with its emphasis on process, that I believe marks the beginnings of a schism between the normative and the empirical, between the ideal and the factual in Kelsen's legal theory, leading ultimately to the post-1960 sceptical phase. To be sure, the point would have to be argued and textually documented at length. On the late, sceptical phase generally, see e.g. Bernard S. Jackson, “Kelsen between Formalism and Realism”,Liverpool Law Review 8 (1985), 79–93; Deryck Beyleveld, “From the ‘Middle-Way’ to Normative Irrationalism: Hans Kelsen'sGeneral Theory of Norms”, Modern Law Review 56 (1993), 104–119.
SeeHP, supra, n. 2, at “Foreword” to 2nd printing (1923), at pp. xii-xvi.
HP, supra n.2, “Foreword” to 2nd printing (1923), p. xiii.
See references at n.6..
LT, supra n.7, at §33 (pp. 77–78).
Kelsen, “The Idea of Natural Law”, in Kelsen,Essays in Legal and Moral Philosophy, ed. Ota Weinberger, trans. Peter Heath (Dordrecht & Boston: Reidel, 1973), 27–60, at 40. (The paper was first published in 1928.)
On the hypothetically-formulated sanction norm, see section IV below.
GTLS, supra n. 9, [Hereafter:GTLS] (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1945). at 122.
GTLS, supra n. 9, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1945). at 122, 123.
GTLS, supra n. 9, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1945). at 144.
In the positive law system, the criteria of validity can, and normally will, be relaxed, undermining a strict symmetry ofex ante andex post perspectives. This relaxation has been institutionalized by the Vienna School theorists in the name of a “calculus of mistakes”; see e.g. Adolf Julius Merkl,Die Lehre von der Rechtskraft (Leipzig & Vienna: Deuticke, 1923), 293–302; Merkl, “Justizirrtum und Rechtswaheit”, 45Zeitschrift für Strafrechtswissenschaften (1925), 452–465, repr.WS I, supra n. 5, at 195–208. See also H.L.A. Hart,The Concept of Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961), 29–30.
The best approximation of a so-called complete legal norm in the Vienna School literature is Merkl's; see his “Prolegomena”supra n. 6 as quoted in the text at n.34 below.
See “Prolegomena”supra n. 6, at, 252–254, 259–261, repr. WS II,supra n. 6, Vaduz, Liechtenstein: Topos, 1983), 252–294, repr. WS II, at 1311–1314, 1320–1322.
Merkl does, however, have a particular type of legal system in mind, namely, that of the Western constitutional state with its parliamentary forms. This is clear in the “Prolegomena”, where he argues that since this or that configuration of species of law, as they turn up in a particular positive legal system, is contingent, it is necessary to settle on a particular “historical realization of law” in order to arrive at a workableanalysandum; see “Prolegomena”,supra n. 6, at 254–256,WS II, supra n. 6. Vaduz, Liechtenstein: Topos, 1983), 252–294, repr.WS II, at 1314–1316. See also the perceptive paper by Theo Öhlinger, “Zum rechtstheoretischen und rechtspolitischen Gehalt der Lehre vom Stufenbau der Rechtsordnung”, inRechtsphilosophie und Gesetzgebung, ed. Johann Mokre & Ota Weinberger (Vienna: Springer, 1976), 79–96.
As noted above, the parallel to Hart's work is striking: seeThe Concept of Law supra n. 25,The Concept of Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961), at. 89-95. And, as various writers have pointed out, John Locke's effort in theSecond Treatise, ch.9, at §§124–131, lies behind Hart's. See, e.g., Geraint Parry,John Locke (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1978), 112–113.
“Prolegomena”,supra n. 6,, at 253, repr.WS II, supra n. 6, Vaduz, Liechtenstein: Topos, 1983), at 1312.
“Prolegomena”,supra n. 6, “, at 259, repr.WS II, supra n. 6, Vaduz, Liechtenstein: Topos, 1983), at 1319–1320.
“Prolegomena”,supra n. 6,, at 259, repr.WS II, supra n. 6, Vaduz, Liechtenstein: Topos, 1983), at 1320.
“Law application” may well appear ambiguous in Merkl's work, referring on the one hand to the issuance of a lower-level norm (say, a statute) from the standpoint of the applicable higher-level norm (say, a constitutional empowering norm), and, on the other, to the imposition of sanctions, as discussed in the text in the name of a third function of law. In fact, however, the latter is short-hand for the issuance of so-called individual legal norms, namely, to the effect that this or that sanction is to be imposed. Thus interpreted, “law application” is not ambiguous.
“Prolegomena”,supra n. 6,, at 274, repr.WS II, supra n. 6, Vaduz, Liechtenstein: Topos, 1983, at 1337.
See Austrian Federal Constitution, at art. 41.
See the procedures specified inibid, at art. 42.
Merkl writes that the only acts “that can be interpreted as regulative acts,as legal norms”, are those “whose immanent sense is the requirement of a certain form of human behaviour accompanied by the threat of a legally imposed sanction”. “Prolegomena”,supra n. 6,, at 273 (emphasis added), repr.WS II, supra n. 6, Vaduz, Liechtenstein: Topos, 1983), at 1337.
HP, supra n.2,, at 237.
SeeHP, supra n. 2,, at 235.
HP, supra n.2,, at 49–50 (Kelsen's emphasis).
HP, supra n. 2,, at 234.
Kelsen,Allgemeine Staatslehre, supra n.7,, at §10(D) p. 51 (Kelsen's emphasis). See alsoLT, supra n.7, at § 14(b) (pp. 29–30).