No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Between Legal Technique and Legal Policy: Remarks on Hans Kelsen’s Constitutional Theory
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 August 2017
Abstract
In this article I seek to re-interpret some of the problems characteristic of Kelsen’s constitutional theory. I shall do so by making use of the Kelsenian perspectives of the legal scholar and the policy-maker as developed in his Pure Theory of Law. I shall argue that in his discussion of constitutional policy issues, Kelsen’s treatises mix legal theoretical arguments (related to the perspective of the legal scholar) with the practical approach of legal policy. My main contention is that political principles are more important for the use of Kelsen’s legal theoretical concepts than usually acknowledged in generally accepted interpretations. The Pure Theory of Law is based on the rejection of autocratic legal thinking, and may be regarded as a formalistic theory of law for a democratic rule of law. Such a conclusion, however, also means that Kelsen’s views concerning the methodology of legal theory are no longer tenable.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 2017
References
1. Olechowski, Thomas, “Hans Kelsen als Mitglied der Staatsrechtlersvereinigung” in Jestaedt, Matthias, ed, Kelsen und die deutsche Staatsrechtslehre (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011) at 11.Google Scholar
2. Neschwara, Christian, “Kelsen als Verfassungsrichter. Seine Rolle in der Dispensehen-Kontroverse” in Paulson, Stanley & Stolleis, Michael, eds, Hans Kelsen—Staatsrechtslehrer und Rechtsphilosoph (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2005) at 353.Google Scholar
3. Kelsen, Hans, “Autobiographie (1947)” in Jestaedt, Matthias, ed, Hans Kelsen Werke (Tübingen: Mohr, 2007) at 30.Google Scholar
4. See, for example: Dreier, Horst, Rechtslehre, Staatssoziologie und Demokratietheorie bei Hans Kelsen (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1990)Google Scholar; van Ooyen, Robert C, Der Staat der Moderne. Hans Kelsens Pluralismustheorie (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2003)Google Scholar; Vinx, Lars, Hans Kelsens Pure Theory of Law. Legality and Legitimacy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).Google Scholar
5. Kelsen, Hans, General Theory of Law & State (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2006) at XXXV.Google Scholar
6. Kelsen, Hans, “Was ist die Reine Rechtslehre?” in Klecatsky, Hans R, Marcic, René & Schambeck, Herbert, eds, Die Wiener rechtstheoretische Schule: Schriften von Hans Kelsen; Adolf Merkl; Alfred Verdross, 2 vols (Vienna: Europa Verlag, 1968) at I 611.Google Scholar
7. Ibid at 620.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid at 619.
10. Troper, Michel, “Kelsen und die Kontrolle der Verfassungsmäßigkeit” in Carrino, Agostino & Winkler, Günther, eds, Rechtserfahrung und Reine Rechtslehre (Vienna: Springer Verlag, 1995) at 18–19.Google Scholar
11. Schönberger, Christoph, “Hans Kelsens ‘Hauptprobleme der Staatsrechtslehre’. Der Übergang vom Staat als Substanz zum Staat als Funktion” in Jestaedt, Matthias, ed, Hans Kelsen Werke, Band 2 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008) at 23–35.Google Scholar
12. Kelsen, supra note 6 at 622.
13. See Voegelin, Eric, “The Austrian Constitutional Reform of 1929” in Heyking, John von & Heilke, Thomas W, eds, Published Essays: 1929-1933, Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, vol. 8 (Columbia: University of Missouri, 2003) at 148.Google Scholar
14. Kelsen, Hans, Staatsform und Weltanschauung (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1933).Google Scholar
15. Kelsen, Hans, “Verteidigung der Demokratie (1932)” in Jestaedt, Matthias & Lepsius, Oliver, eds, Verteidigung der Demokratie. Abhandlungen zur Demokratietheorie (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006).Google Scholar
16. Kelsen, Hans, “The Nature and Development of Constitutional Adjudication” in Vinx, Lars, ed and translated, The Guardian of the Constitution: Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt on the Limits of Constitutional Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015) at 22.Google Scholar
17. Marbury v Madison 5 US 137 (1803).
18. Kelsen, supra note 16 at 69.
19. Troper, supra note 10 at 22-23.
20. Ibid at 20-21.
21. Hans Kelsen, “Value Judgments in the Science of Law” (1942) 7 J Soc Phil & Juris 312 at 312-17.
22. Kelsen, supra note 6 at 617.
23. Joseph Raz, “Kelsen’s Theory of the Basic Norm” (1974) 19:1 Am J Juris 94.
24. Stanley Paulson, “Der Normativismus Hans Kelsens” (2006) 61:11 Juristenzeitung 529 at 529-36.
25. Kelsen, supra note 16 at 59-61.
26. van Ooyen, Robert C, “Staat und pluralistische Gesellschaft bei Kelsen” in Ehs, Tamara, ed, Hans Kelsen: Eine politikwissenschaftliche Einführung (Vienna: Facultas, 2009) at 17–45.Google Scholar
27. Kelsen, supra note 16 at 25.
28. Walter, Robert, Kelsen als Verfassungsrichter (Vienna, Manz Verlag, 2005).Google Scholar
29. VfSlg 32/1919.
30. VfSlg 190/1922.
31. VfSlg 651/1926.
32. Walter, supra note 28 at 52.
33. VfSlg 797/1927.
34. Walter, supra note 28 at 53.
35. VfSlg 800/1927.
36. VfSlg 775/1927.
37. Walter, supra note 28 at 55.
38. VfSlg 881/1927, and ibid at 55.
39. Kelsen, supra note 16 at 59-61.
40. Walter, supra note 28 at 58-68; Neschwara, supra note 2 at 353.
41. Sources indicate that Sever issued some 15,000 dispensations. By the end of the 1920s, when the cases came to the Constitutional Court, the total number was around 50,000. See: Neschwara, Christian, “Hans Kelsen und das Problem der Dispensehen” in Walter, Robert, Ogris, Werner & Olechowski, Thomas, eds, Hans Kelsen: Leben—Werk—Wirksamkeit (Vienna, Manz Verlag, 2009) at 250Google Scholar; Harmat, Ulrike, Ehe auf Widerruf? Der Konflikt um das Eherecht in Österreich 1918-1938 (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann Verlag, 1999).Google Scholar
42. Kelsen, supra note 3 at 73-75.
43. Walter, supra note 28 at 60-61.
44. Ibid at 62.
45. Ibid.
46. Neschwara, supra note 2 at 377-82.
47. Kelsen, supra note 3 at 75-76.
48. Ibid at 77.
49. Hans Kelsen, “Verfassungsreform in Österreich” (1929) 4:3 Die Justiz 130-36.
50. Ibid at 130.
51. Ibid.
52. Ibid at 136.
53. Ibid: “Nicht eigentlich ein Abbau des Parlamentarismus, der ja äußerlich bestehen bleibt, sondern ein Abbau der Demokratie. Ein Schein-Parlamentarismus wie etwa in Ungarn. Hinter dem parlamentarischen Schein aber steht die Diktatur der Majorität.” [“Not really an erosion of parliamentarism, for that remains there on the surface, but an erosion of democracy. A mock-parliamentarism, as in Hungary. Yet behind the pretence of parliamentarism there is a dictatorship of the majority.”]
54. Hans Kelsen, Vom Wesen und Wert der Demokratie (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1928) at 56.
55. Vinx, supra note 4.
56. Ronald Dworkin, “Hart’s Postscript and the Character of Political Philosophy” (2004) 24:1 Oxford J Legal Stud 1 at 1-2.
57. Joseph Raz, Ethics in Public Domain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996) at 209.
58. See also: Bódig Mátyás, “The issue of normativity and the methodological implications of interpretivism I: The idea of normative guidance” (2013) 54:2 Acta Juridica Hungarica 119 at 119-39.
59. Nicos Stavropoulos, “Legal Interpretivism” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2014), online: http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2014/entries/law-interpretivist/.
60. Christoph Möllers, “Vorüberlegungen zu einer Wissenschaftstheorie des öffentlichen Rechts” in Matthias Jestaedt & Oliver Lepsius, eds, Rechtswissenschaftstheorie, (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008) at 170.