This thesis examines the consequences of taking a conversational approach to legal interpretation. This is meant to contrast with and improve the argument given in Ronald Dworkin's Law's Empire.

Legal positivism insists upon a distinction between the inside and outside of law. The common law and statutory rules of interpretation assist in maintaining this distinction, establishing the myth that legal decision-making is a purely objective and rational process, giving rise to internal truths. While critical theorists have illustrated the ways in which the lines between the inside and outside are always blurred, there remains a perceived distinction, in law, between the interpretation of concepts that occurs in the law and that which occurs outside the law. Only the former have legal legitimacy. The idea of the legal family is a case in point, where the law defines family according to its own prescriptions irrespective of how family is constituted by non-legal communities. In this thesis, I consider the meanings of family in different spheres to show how the lines between the social, the political and the legal consistently overlap. I then develop a mechanism by which the law can acknowledge and affirm that which is ‘outside’. This requires, firstly, a conception of law as communication and of legal interpretation as a constructive process. Secondly, the task demands that jurists engage with the semiotic processes of the everyday and that legal concepts, at least those that exist independently of the law (family for example) be framed with an open indexicality. This might enable such concepts to be interpreted according to a range of contexts, other than (or in addition to) the legal one. Finally, using the family as an example, I illustrate how a semiotic approach can assist legal interpretation, reform and analysis.

The Possibilities of Using Analogy in Public Law Argument by analogy plays an important role in the law. It enables to complete legal system so that it presents system that is uniform and as to its values internally coherent. One of the basic knowledge of law faculty student is that statutory interpretation and application of law by analogy counts among logical methods of interpretation. However, this finding is being ever more frequently questioned in the recent literature. Rather than logical structure of an argument by analogy it is its logical nature that is being emphasized. The main aim of this thesis is to describe the structure of analogy as a general method of reasoning. So defined, analogy will be subsequently applied to the options of using analogy in public law as it is not possible to use analogy to the same extent in all fields of law. Generally speaking, the use of analogy in public law is more restricted than it is in private law and in particular fields of public law the restriction of the use of analogy are even stricter. Throughout the thesis I also attempt to support my theoretical conclusions with the relevant case law. The text is divided into four main chapters. In the introductory chapter I define analogy as a general method and further address its use in law into three...

"Thèse présentée à la Faculté des études supérieures En vue de l'obtention du grade de Docteur en droit" / La présente thèse a d'abord pour sujet la fonction participative reconnue à l'interprète de la nonne, déniée par la doctrine classique au profit de la fiction qui fonde l'absolutisation de l'intention de l'auteur de la nonne. Faisant état des phases de l'avènement du sens de la loi dans le déploiement du cercle hennéneutique, nous analysons la doctrine classique et, abordant l'interprétation selon l'approche hennéneutique, nous dégageons et explicitons les conditions propres à l'avènement de la juridicité tant au niveau de l'autonomie du texte que de sa réception. La présente thèse a également pour fin d'évaluer le poids des contraintes sur l'interprétation et l'application à l'oeuvre en droit. Comment, dans le processus de l'avènement du sens de la nonne, l'interprétation juridique s'édifie-t-elle et s'enrichitelle des valeurs et des règles qui régissent la production du droit? Pour analyser et caractériser le rôle du juge dans l'avènement du sens de la nonne juridique selon une démarche dont la spécificité relève de la phénoménologie et de 1'hennéneutique philosophique, nous choisissons le domaine des droits linguistiques. L'analyse des données empiriques recueillies pennet de voir sur quelles voies, au-delà de la prédétennination et de la co-détennination du sens de la nonne, s'engage la «surdétennination» (concept propre à la théorie de «l'analyse systémale» et selon lequel le sens de la nonne émerge aussi en référence au champ de valeurs qui traverse la représentation de la réalité de la nonne) et dès lors d'en illustrer concrètement les manifestations propres. D'abord envisagée sous le règne de l'histoire, des principes fondateurs et des enjeux liés à la dualité linguistique, l'étude du contentieux linguistique est spécifiquement traitée sous l'angle des droits des minorités linguistiques et de la représentation des valeurs privilégiées. L'analyse des mémoires déposés par les IV parties et les intervenants dans les causes entendues en matière de droits linguistiques révèle que les valeurs identitaires dominent les interventions analysées. L'analyse de la réceptivité de la Cour et l'interprétation des juges confirme ensuite que la surdétennination est à l' oeuvre. Ce parcours théorique pennet que nous disposions d'une représentation raisonnée du rôle du juge dans la construction du sens en droit selon laquelle les trois moments du cercle hennéneutique - compréhension, interprétation, application s'unissent dans l'avènement du sens de la loi en une dynamique circulaire et anticipatoire propre à révéler les constituants du texte juridique. L'analyse empmque confirme quant à elle la participation du récepteur et interprète de la nonne sur le sens qui préside à son accession à la juridicité. / This thesis deals primarily with the participative function of the interpreter of the law as it is acknowledged except by the c1assical doctrine that is more inc1ined to see the intention of the lawmaker as the absolute detenninant. Referring to the various stages in the meaning-making process through the creation of the henneneutical circ1e, we analyze the c1assical doctrine and, while dealing with interpretation of the law under the henneneutical approach, we put forward and explain the very conditions where the legal phenomenon appears at the level of the autonomy of the text and of its reception. This thesis also intends to assess the impact of the construction and enforcement constraints regarding the law. How, in the course of the meaningmaking process, is legal interpretation built and enriched by the values and rules which govem law-making? To analyze and characterize the role of the judge in the making of the meaning of the law with a specifie approach inspired by phenomenology and philosophical henneneutics, we have chosen the area of language rights. The analysis of the empirical data that was gathered enables us to see, beyond the predetermination and the co-determination of the meaning of the law, where overdetermination is headed (a specifie concept of the "systemal analysis" theory under which the meaning of the law also emerges by reference to the value system permeating the representation of the reality of the law) and therefore to concretely illustrate its very expressions. First approached from the perspectives of history, of the founding principles and of the issues related to the linguistic duality, the linguistic case law is specifically VI reviewed in the context of linguistic minority rights and of the representation of preferred values. An analysis of submissions filed by the parties and the interveners in linguistic rights cases shows the major role played by identity-related values in the reviewed interventions. The analysis of the Court's responsiveness and the interpretation of judges then confirm the existence of an over-determination. This theoretical exploration allows us to have a reasoned representation of the judge's role in the making of meaning in law through the three stages of the hermeneutical circle - understanding, interpretation, application - that are combined in a circular and anticipatory process aiming at revealing the constitutive elements of the legal text. The empirical analysis confirms the influence of the recipient and interpreter of the law on the meaning which leads it to become a legal phenomenon.

The phenomenon of the case law and publication of the case law reports has been present in our legal culture at least since the 13th century, as well as in some other European countries. Court decisions in writing occurred through several types of documents and sources. We can trace the case law documents in the public royal records ("the plates"), the law books and the first constitutional codifications of law. There is even particular group of the law collections which we can actually name as the original case law reports. The case law reports were designed even before this period of time. Unfortunately, no such original law reports survived up to the present day. We can strongly state the sustainable tradition of typical case law collections in the Czech legal culture since the medieval times. The very first case law reports in modern sense of meaning came in late 1850`s. But the periodicals case law reports in the Czech language eventually appeared with the year of 1918 when the Czech state was restored. Creating the case law reports and its headnotes falls within the process of court decisions publication. The courts, which constitute the top of the judicial pyramid, operate with their special individual instruments on their case law publication. The official law reports have been established...

La présente thèse a d'abord pour sujet la fonction participative reconnue à l'interprète de la nonne, déniée par la doctrine classique au profit de la fiction qui fonde l'absolutisation de l'intention de l'auteur de la nonne. Faisant état des phases de l'avènement du sens de la loi dans le déploiement du cercle hennéneutique, nous analysons la doctrine classique et, abordant l'interprétation selon l'approche hennéneutique, nous dégageons et explicitons les conditions propres à l'avènement de la juridicité tant au niveau de l'autonomie du texte que de sa réception. La présente thèse a également pour fin d'évaluer le poids des contraintes sur l'interprétation et l'application à l'oeuvre en droit. Comment, dans le processus de l'avènement du sens de la nonne, l'interprétation juridique s'édifie-t-elle et s'enrichitelle des valeurs et des règles qui régissent la production du droit? Pour analyser et caractériser le rôle du juge dans l'avènement du sens de la nonne juridique selon une démarche dont la spécificité relève de la phénoménologie et de 1'hennéneutique philosophique, nous choisissons le domaine des droits linguistiques. L'analyse des données empiriques recueillies pennet de voir sur quelles voies, au-delà de la prédétennination et de la co-détennination du sens de la nonne, s'engage la «surdétennination» (concept propre à la théorie de «l'analyse systémale» et selon lequel le sens de la nonne émerge aussi en référence au champ de valeurs qui traverse la représentation de la réalité de la nonne) et dès lors d'en illustrer concrètement les manifestations propres. D'abord envisagée sous le règne de l'histoire, des principes fondateurs et des enjeux liés à la dualité linguistique, l'étude du contentieux linguistique est spécifiquement traitée sous l'angle des droits des minorités linguistiques et de la représentation des valeurs privilégiées. L'analyse des mémoires déposés par les IV parties et les intervenants dans les causes entendues en matière de droits linguistiques révèle que les valeurs identitaires dominent les interventions analysées. L'analyse de la réceptivité de la Cour et l'interprétation des juges confirme ensuite que la surdétennination est à l' oeuvre. Ce parcours théorique pennet que nous disposions d'une représentation raisonnée du rôle du juge dans la construction du sens en droit selon laquelle les trois moments du cercle hennéneutique - compréhension, interprétation, application s'unissent dans l'avènement du sens de la loi en une dynamique circulaire et anticipatoire propre à révéler les constituants du texte juridique. L'analyse empmque confirme quant à elle la participation du récepteur et interprète de la nonne sur le sens qui préside à son accession à la juridicité. / This thesis deals primarily with the participative function of the interpreter of the law as it is acknowledged except by the c1assical doctrine that is more inc1ined to see the intention of the lawmaker as the absolute detenninant. Referring to the various stages in the meaning-making process through the creation of the henneneutical circ1e, we analyze the c1assical doctrine and, while dealing with interpretation of the law under the henneneutical approach, we put forward and explain the very conditions where the legal phenomenon appears at the level of the autonomy of the text and of its reception. This thesis also intends to assess the impact of the construction and enforcement constraints regarding the law. How, in the course of the meaningmaking process, is legal interpretation built and enriched by the values and rules which govem law-making? To analyze and characterize the role of the judge in the making of the meaning of the law with a specifie approach inspired by phenomenology and philosophical henneneutics, we have chosen the area of language rights. The analysis of the empirical data that was gathered enables us to see, beyond the predetermination and the co-determination of the meaning of the law, where overdetermination is headed (a specifie concept of the "systemal analysis" theory under which the meaning of the law also emerges by reference to the value system permeating the representation of the reality of the law) and therefore to concretely illustrate its very expressions. First approached from the perspectives of history, of the founding principles and of the issues related to the linguistic duality, the linguistic case law is specifically VI reviewed in the context of linguistic minority rights and of the representation of preferred values. An analysis of submissions filed by the parties and the interveners in linguistic rights cases shows the major role played by identity-related values in the reviewed interventions. The analysis of the Court's responsiveness and the interpretation of judges then confirm the existence of an over-determination. This theoretical exploration allows us to have a reasoned representation of the judge's role in the making of meaning in law through the three stages of the hermeneutical circle - understanding, interpretation, application - that are combined in a circular and anticipatory process aiming at revealing the constitutive elements of the legal text. The empirical analysis confirms the influence of the recipient and interpreter of the law on the meaning which leads it to become a legal phenomenon. / "Thèse présentée à la Faculté des études supérieures En vue de l'obtention du grade de Docteur en droit"

In international criminal law (ICL), legal meaning has been developed substantially through the judgments of international courts. Compared to some of their prosecutorial decisions, however, the way in which international judges have interpreted legal provisions has remained relatively uncontested. This study uses practice theory as a particularly fruitful lens through which to study the politics of legal interpretation. It analyses the conditions under which the creation of a comparatively uncontested judicial space became possible as an interplay between political commitments and the professional assumptions of ICL experts. The study argues that international criminal courts - unlike hybrid courts - have been accorded a particularly high degree of interpretive authority through what will be called the 'practice of privileged precedent'. It traces how this interpretive practice has been shared across institutional settings within a broader interpretive community, including by government officials and civil society representatives. Through this research, this thesis emphasises the relevance of legal interpretation for IR's understanding of international law and international courts. Drawing on legal theory, it also addresses one of the key challenges of IR's practice turn: its capacity to account for the creative potential of international practices. Methodologically, the thesis combines qualitative and quantitative forms of content analysis, elite interviews, and legal interpretive methods. It is based on an examination of over 100 judgments of international and hybrid criminal courts interpreting the crime of genocide and the law of war crimes, including judicial decisions delivered by the International Criminal Court (ICC), the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), and the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL). This analysis is supplemented by 28 elite interviews with judges and legal experts at international criminal courts, staff at civil society organisations, and government officials working for the British and German foreign offices.

1 Identity and Universality of Legal Cultures in Eastern Europe Abstract Submitted thesis explores the topic of possible approximation among East European legal culture and common law legal culture. As an indicator supporting or dismissing the trend in question serves a qualitative as well as quantitative analysis of the comparative argumentation in the case law of constitutional courts of five East European countries: Russia, Hungary, Poland, Romania and the Czech Republic. Firstly, the thesis explains the concept of legal culture, underlines its critique and introduces it as a fitting theoretical framework for a detailed study of constitutional comparative argumentation. The comparative argumentation and its theoretical outline are in the center of the subsequent part of the thesis which also tries to describe effects of socialist legal culture on legal argumentation before courts in the region of Eastern Europe. The comparative argumentation is then introduced as a relatively important but also an overlooked method of legal argumentation, at least in the region in question. Following these findings, the occurrence and methodological quality of comparative analysis in the case law of constitutional courts is established as a suitable indicator of potential approximation of examined legal cultures. The...

The objective of the PhD-thesis is analytical and comparative description of the main theoretical and philosophical approaches to the issue of legal interpretation, focusing on practical application. Initially, attention is paid to explanation of the concept of legal interpretation itself, focusing also on the practical meaning of differentiation between each designatum of the concept of legal interpretation as well as the reflection thereof in the applicable law. Other parts of the thesis include an introduction to the general typology of the theories of legal interpretation followed by a more detailed analysis of the three basic contemporary theories (philosophies) of legal interpretation, namely analytical approach (both the so-called horse-shoe analysis and soft-shoe analysis), hermeneutic approach (attention is paid to the traditional as well as modern hermeneutics, both the phenomenological and methodological branch), and discursive approach (represented by the rhetorical-topical view of discourse as well as the procedural concept of discourse). The PhD-thesis results in the pronunciation of a syncretic opinion that the different theories of interpretation of law should be explained and taught in mutual context because this dialogic approach provides a guarantee that their conclusions and...

A relação entre razão e direito faz parte da tradição do pensamento ocidental. No período moderno, essa relação serviu de base para o surgimento de uma cultura jurídica autônoma, dentro da qual foram elaboradas as idéias de sujeito de direito e sistema jurídico. No entanto, a modernidade também criou condições para o nascimento das chamadas teorias jurídicas, que se constituem como uma nova forma de discurso jurídico, distinta das teorias filosóficas e das dogmáticas jurídicas, por não manifestarem o modelo de racionalidade tradicional, associado à concepção de lei natural. Para compreender a racionalidade nesse novo âmbito do discurso dos juristas, é proposto, nesta tese de doutoramento, um caminho peculiar: por um lado, tomam-se por objeto teorias jurídicas que se tornaram referência no contexto anglo-saxônico, ou seja, fora dos marcos habituais da racionalização na Europa continental moderna; por outro lado, são considerados como fio condutor para esta investigação os enfoques interpretativos construídos como legítimos por essas teorias, em vez de configurar sua racionalidade a partir de divisões escolares ou matrizes epistemológicas. Essa delimitação permite revelar três modelos novos e distintos de racionalidade jurídica, que resultam do desenvolvimento de diferentes concepções de pontos de vista no contexto do debate entre as teorias jurídicas de John Austin, Oliver W. Holmes Jr., Hans Kelsen, Herbert L. A. Hart, Robert Alexy e Ronald Dworkin. Esses três modelos, por sua vez, contribuem para ressaltar os limites heurísticos da contraposição positivismo vs. antipositivismo para tratar da racionalidade no direito contemporâneo. / The relation between reason and law is part of the Western thought tradition. In the modern period, this relation served as basis for the emergence of an autonomous legal culture, within which the ideas of \"subjects of law\" and \"legal system\" were elaborated. However, modernity has also created conditions for the birth of the so-called legal theories, which were constituted as a new form of legal discourse (distinct from the legal dogmatics and philosophical theories of law), for they do not present the traditional model of rationality associated with the conception of natural law. A peculiar method is proposed in this doctoral thesis, in order to understand the rationality in this new sphere of legal discourse: on the one hand, legal theories which have become reference within the Anglo-Saxon world i.e., theories outside the usual landmarks of rationalization in modern continental Europe are taken as object; on the other hand, the interpretive approaches (focuses) formulated as legitimate by these theories are considered as expressions of rationality, instead of rationality as originated from divisions by schools of thought or epistemological matrices. By means of this method, three new distinct models of legal reasoning are revealed. These models are the outcome of different concepts of \"point of view\" which were defended throughout the dialogue which took place between the theories of John Austin, Oliver W. Holmes Jr., Hans Kelsen, Herbert L. A. Hart, Ronald Dworkin and Robert Alexy. These three models, in turn, contribute to highlighting the heuristic limits of the opposition legal positivism vs. non-positivism in the debate over rationality in contemporary law.