O presente trabalho examina o chamado problema da indeterminação jurídica, de maneira a procurar explicitar o tipo de questões teóricas que suscita e apreciar o alcance ou fecundidade das respostas que tais questões possibilitam, sobretudo sob o ângulo da discussão dos pressupostos institucionais subjacentes à organização das atividades de aplicação do direito. Nesse contexto, a tese central do trabalho é a de que a ideia de indeterminação do direito, restrita ao contexto jurisdicional e entendida como um fenômeno linguístico, esgotou seu potencial teórico, e que a percepção desse esgotamento deveria conduzir à exploração de formas pelas quais questões de indeterminação do direito podem ser mais produtivamente tratadas como questões sobre configuração institucional do que como questões sobre a natureza, ou defeitos, da linguagem. São analisadas abordagens paradigmáticas do problema - no pensamento de Hans Kelsen, H.L.A. Hart e Ronald Dworkin - e os pressupostos institucionais que as informam, assim como identificados pontos de partida, nos estudos de Lon L. Fuller voltados à avaliação de formas alternativas de organização social, para exercícios de inovação institucional. A possibilidade de tais exercícios é exemplificada, ao final do trabalho, com propostas específicas de inovação, elaboradas por autores contemporâneos, concentradas na função jurisdicional, dirigidas a enfrentar o reconhecido impasse entre propostas de expansão e contenção da atuação judicial no contexto de efetivação de direitos sociais de caráter distributivo. / This work analyses the so-called legal indeterminacy problem, in order to make explicit the kind of theoretical issues it engenders and to assess the scope or fecundity of the answers such issues make possible, especially in terms of the discussion of institutional assumptions underlying the organization of the adjudicative function. In this setting, the central claim of this work is that the theoretical potential of the idea of legal indeterminacy, limited to the adjudicative realm and understood mainly as a linguistic phenomenon, has been worn out, and that the acknowledgment of this result should lead to the investigation of ways in which ?legal indeterminacy? issues might be more productively treated as issues about institutional innovation than issues about the nature, or defects, of language. The exemplary works of Hans Kelsen, H.L.A. Hart, and Ronald Dworkin and the institutional assumptions underlying their thought, in connection with the indeterminacy problem, are reviewed, along with the writings of Lon L. Fuller dedicated to the assessment of alternative processes of social ordering, which are taken as a point of departure for exercises in institutional innovation. The possibility of such exercises is illustrated, at the end of this work, with specific innovation proposals by contemporary authors focused on the adjudicative job, dedicated to facing the theoretical deadlock between proposals for expanding and restricting the judicial role in the context of making welfare rights, of a distributive character, concrete

O presente trabalho examina o chamado problema da indeterminação jurídica, de maneira a procurar explicitar o tipo de questões teóricas que suscita e apreciar o alcance ou fecundidade das respostas que tais questões possibilitam, sobretudo sob o ângulo da discussão dos pressupostos institucionais subjacentes à organização das atividades de aplicação do direito. Nesse contexto, a tese central do trabalho é a de que a ideia de indeterminação do direito, restrita ao contexto jurisdicional e entendida como um fenômeno linguístico, esgotou seu potencial teórico, e que a percepção desse esgotamento deveria conduzir à exploração de formas pelas quais questões de indeterminação do direito podem ser mais produtivamente tratadas como questões sobre configuração institucional do que como questões sobre a natureza, ou defeitos, da linguagem. São analisadas abordagens paradigmáticas do problema - no pensamento de Hans Kelsen, H.L.A. Hart e Ronald Dworkin - e os pressupostos institucionais que as informam, assim como identificados pontos de partida, nos estudos de Lon L. Fuller voltados à avaliação de formas alternativas de organização social, para exercícios de inovação institucional. A possibilidade de tais exercícios é exemplificada, ao final do trabalho, com propostas específicas de inovação, elaboradas por autores contemporâneos, concentradas na função jurisdicional, dirigidas a enfrentar o reconhecido impasse entre propostas de expansão e contenção da atuação judicial no contexto de efetivação de direitos sociais de caráter distributivo. / This work analyses the so-called legal indeterminacy problem, in order to make explicit the kind of theoretical issues it engenders and to assess the scope or fecundity of the answers such issues make possible, especially in terms of the discussion of institutional assumptions underlying the organization of the adjudicative function. In this setting, the central claim of this work is that the theoretical potential of the idea of legal indeterminacy, limited to the adjudicative realm and understood mainly as a linguistic phenomenon, has been worn out, and that the acknowledgment of this result should lead to the investigation of ways in which ?legal indeterminacy? issues might be more productively treated as issues about institutional innovation than issues about the nature, or defects, of language. The exemplary works of Hans Kelsen, H.L.A. Hart, and Ronald Dworkin and the institutional assumptions underlying their thought, in connection with the indeterminacy problem, are reviewed, along with the writings of Lon L. Fuller dedicated to the assessment of alternative processes of social ordering, which are taken as a point of departure for exercises in institutional innovation. The possibility of such exercises is illustrated, at the end of this work, with specific innovation proposals by contemporary authors focused on the adjudicative job, dedicated to facing the theoretical deadlock between proposals for expanding and restricting the judicial role in the context of making welfare rights, of a distributive character, concrete

Les arguments du mouvement Critical Legal Studies sur l’indétermination du droit ne sont doublés d’aucune théorie sur la légitimité des interprétations qu’offrent les juges et donc d’aucun critère juridique pour critiquer une décision. La théorie pluraliste critique du droit, qui prend acte de la pluralité du droit officiel pour redéfinir le phénomène juridique plutôt que de nier qu’il puisse exister, pourrait toutefois fournir un tel critère. En effet, elle présente plusieurs correspondances avec les travaux de Dworkin, qui défend que les citoyens sont en droit d’obtenir les fruits d’une attitude interprétative en germe dans le concept même de droit. Ces deux théories maintiennent que le droit sert à reconnaître la valeur de l’histoire d’un groupe dans sa conception de lui-même tout en soutenant qu’il doit trouver une pertinence contemporaine pour être effectif et légitime. Les pluralistes priorisent toutefois la résonance actuelle des règles de droit et croient que toute communauté est divisée entre diverses définitions du bien. Selon eux, le droit est avant tout un procédé pour penser la conduite humaine et lui conférer un sens, qui dépend des capacités créatrices des citoyens. Chaque règle est alors la cause d’une pluralité d’ordres juridiques concurrents. Suivant ce portrait, seule l’acceptation d’une interprétation par un groupe, sa capacité à lui reconnaître un sens, pourrait rendre cette interprétation légitime. Ce critère nous mène vers un modèle de justice négociée où deux personnes s’adressent à un juge pour développer une lecture en commun du droit, pour identifier une interprétation légitime dans leurs univers juridiques respectifs. / No theory of the legitimacy of judges accompanies the Critical Legal Studies’ arguments on the indeterminacy of law, which entails there are no criteria to identify a legitimate interpretation. Critical legal pluralism, which redefines law to take account of its inherent plurality rather than denying its very possibility on these grounds, could however provide such criteria. Indeed, it presents many resemblances with Dworkin’s theory of law which argues that citizens are entitled to reap the benefits of the interpretative nature of law. Both theories defend that law allows to bridge a group’s past, which is essential to its self-understanding, with the present, and both insist that law must be made to appear relevant in the present. Pluralists however prioritize the current significance of law and stress that communities are split by a variety of definitions of the good. According to them, law is mainly a process to think about human conduct and grant it meaning, and it depends as such on citizens’ creative capacities. Accordingly, only an interpretation that is accepted by a group and seen as meaningful can be considered legitimate. This criterion forces us to consider a form of negotiated justice, where two persons consult a judge to develop a common reading of a rule which would be legitimate in each person’s legal universe.