Legal Positivism and the Separation of Existence and Validity

Abstract

This paper centers upon the issue, within the project of analytic jurisprudence, of how to construe the status of the legal activities of a state when there is a disjuncture between a nation's formal legal commitments, such as those stated within a bill or charter of rights, and the way in which its officials actually engage in the practice of law, i.e., legislation and adjudication. Although there are two positions within contemporary legal theory which focus directly on this issue (Inclusive and Exclusive Legal Positivism), neither is able to offer an acceptable descriptive-explanatory account of the variety of legal activities at play within such situations. Thus, tensions between legal formality and practice, existent in many legal systems today, can be used to delineate a theoretical gap in regard to our understanding of law. This paper serves to acknowledge that point, and suggests a possible constructive solution to the positivists' descriptive-explanatory problem. Furthermore, in taking seriously the gap between the normative orientation of a legal system and its de facto practice, this paper also suggests other areas within analytic jurisprudence that might be meaningfully informed by that issue.

Wilfrid J. Waluchow: el positivismo incluyente y el constitucionalismo del “árbol vivo”

“…("validez como aceptación"); y por otro, existe el concepto de validez como pertenencia al sistema jurídico, como cuando una norma cumple los criterios que establece la regla de reconocimiento ("validez sistemática"). En el caso de Manitoba, las normas "existen" como hechos sociales, pero las normas no "existen" en tanto no concuerdan con los criterios consagrados en la regla social de reconocimiento (Waluchow, 2009, p. 140;Grellette, 2010). Para Waluchow, ambos lados del debate tienen recursos para explicar partes diferentes de la declaratoria de invalidez.…”

Unlocking Legal Validity: Some Remarks on the Artificial Ontology of Law

“…We have seen that for several Anglo-American legal theorists who have been following Kelsen on the point, validity is existence and hence validity is bindingness. As has been shown instead by those scholars who warn of the unsatisfying theoretical implications of Kelsen's thesis (Munzer 1972;Ferrajoli 2007;Grellette 2010;Guastini 2016), this "flattening" of validity with existence leads to a variety of explanatory shortcomings that leave an important amount of legal practice unsatisfactorily unaccounted for. This discussion has taken place mostly at the constitutional level when some sort of "constitutional entrenchment" is present in a given legal system.…”

Functions in Jurisprudential Methodology

“…10 10 I say “generally” because many positivists will argue that it is possible for officials to make mistakes in the application of their criteria of legal validity and hence for there to be valid laws that officials do not recognize as valid, or invalid laws that officials do recognize as valid. For a canvass of some of these issues, see Grellette 2010. See also, Giudice 2002 and Himma 2005. …”