On the dual nature of law ( formal and substantive dimensions) plus a third dimension of legitimacy

To explain the formal and substantive dimension of law I will refer to an article from a famous scholar in the field of European Law

 

Avbelj, M., “The EU and the Many Faces of Legal Pluralism. Towards a Coherent or Uniform EU Legal Order?, Croatian Yearbook of European Law and Policy, 2006, vol. 2, pp. 377-391.

 

On the dual nature of law – pp. 387-389

 

"IV. Dual Nature of Law

 

It has been submitted that globalisation and its phenomena, and perhaps most notably the emergence of the European Union, have challenged the traditional understanding of law, even to the degree that an entire shift of the paradigm of law is said to be required. However, while we generally share the beliefs of these paradigm-shifters, we are nevertheless convinced that despite the fundamental changes in the environment in which the law is embedded, the law still remains the cornerstone of modern society due to some of its intrinsic qualities that emanate from its dual nature.

 

Speaking about the dual nature of law, we refer to the formal and substantive dimensions of its existence. This is a very well-known issue that has historically divided lawyers, roughly speaking, between the proponents of positive law, i.e. legal positivists that have focused on and promoted the formal conception of law, and the proponents of natural law in various forms who have emphasized the substantive conception of law. As the following discussion will show, the two accounts of law - formal and substantive - cannot be taken separately or even antagonistically. Rather, they have to be fused in the so-called integrated conception of law.

 

From the purely formal understanding of law, the purpose of legal regulation in society is the maintenance of order based on legal rules that their addressees should be able to comprehend and according to which their actions should be guided. For the formal conception of law, it is thus indispensable that valid legal rules are promulgated in a correct manner by a competent body, that they are of prospect temporal validity and that they are clear and identifiable so that the addressees of these legal rules which confer rights and impose duties know how to conduct themselves in order to remain in compliance with the law. Non-compliance with legal rules is, according to the formal conception of law, the only justified reason for sanctions (coercion) imposed on the individual. Sanctions can be imposed only by independent courts to which every- body must have equal access. In essence, the formal conception of law is about certainty: individuals have to know who adopts the law, what their rights and duties are according to the law, and who adjudicates the cases of conflict and non-compliance.

 

The advocates of the substantive conception of law recognize the importance of certainty, which legal positivists posit as the paramount value, but they go further in their quest by raising the question of good and bad law. For legal formalists, this question pertains to theories of social and political justice, which are, of course, not unimportant, but which are methodologically unnecessary and even inappropriate for the formal conception of law and should therefore be excluded from its ambit. On the other hand, the appropriate theory of justice embedded in law constitutes the core of the substantive conception of law. The substantive conception of law is therefore not just about certainty, but about the certainty in the allocation of rights and duties between individuals and the public authority that fits best the chosen conception of justice of a particular community.

 

Neither of the two conceptions of law can stand in isolation from the other. An exclusively formalist approach without substantive justice would soon turn certainty into oppression, whereas an exclusively substantive approach without formal means to contain and check the claims to an appropriate conception of justice would sooner or later turn justice into injustice and arbitrariness. Since to be valid law has to be effective (certainty and coercion) and legitimate (justice), the only viable conception of law is an integrated conception that merges the formal and the substantive. According to the latter, the role of the law is to provide certainty in the allocation of rights and duties that fits best the chosen conception of justice within the respective community."

 

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Comment to the article by M. Avbelj

 

I agree with the dual nature of law based both on formal and substantive requirements. When only one dimension of law is considered,  the results may lead to injustice, uncertainty and opression. But there is another philosophical school -unknown for the anglosaxon literature- that argues that in fact there is a triple dimension of law, one where norms have to complied not only with the formal and substantive dimension but also with a third pillar of legitimacy:

 

-       legality-validity (importance of certainty as legal positivists defend)

-       justice (importance of fundamental rights, ethics and social justice as advocates of substantive law defend)

-       legitimacy ( importance of sociology or support for the effective use of legal coercion or force by the State against the ultimate holders of sovereignty, the people).

 

I was educated in this school represented in Spain by the Dean of the Faculty of Law of the University Complutense of Madrid, Prof. of Legal Philosophy José Iturmendi  Morales.* For this school, Law, Justice and People are intrinsically related. When one pillar fails or is violated, law does not qualify as such and the legal order is replaced by legal disorder. It is in this context that the concept of civil desobedience comes into the picture . Iturmendi is a professor who has encouraged legal thinking and research on civil disobedience  in a generation of Spanish lawyers so that law is not misused.

 

On civil desobedience

 

 See the website of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

 

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/civil-disobedience/

 

In Spain - University Complutense de Madrid

 

Following this line or research, we find recently Prof. of Legal Philosophy of the University Complutense María José Falcón y Tella, author of the book on civil desobedience: La desobediencia civil . Madrid. Marcial Pons, 2000 who worked on this research project at several universities such Harvard University, Köln, Frankfurt and Rome (La Sapienza). This research was supported by the Ministry of Education and Science of Spain.

 

 

Link to the books by Prof. Falcón y Tella

 

http://www.unilibro.es/find_buy_es/result_scrittori.asp?scrittore=FALCON+Y+TELLA%2C+MARIA+JOSE&idaff=0

 

Her article on civil desobedience

http://revistas.ucm.es/der/02120364/articulos/ANDH0000110037A.PDF

 

Her bibliography on civil desobedience on which her book published in 2000 relies

 

FALCÓN Y TELLA, MARÍA JOSé: El argumento analógico en el Derecho. Madrid. Civitas. 1991. Prólogo de José Iturmendi Morales./ Concepto y fun- damento de la validez del Derecho, Madrid, Civitas, 1994. Prólogo de François Ost. Trad. al portugués por Stefani Borba de Rose Trunfo. Brasil. Triángulo. 1998. Trad. al inglés por Peter Muckley. /«Algunas consideraciones acerca de la desobediencia civil», en VVAA: Guerra, Moral y Derecho, Madrid, Actas, 1994, pp. 215-257. / «Constitución española de 1978 y Estado social y democrático de Derecho», en VVAA: «El Estado de Derecho en la España de hoy», Madrid, Ac- tas, 1996, pp. 169-237./ «Should we obey the unjust law? The question of civil disobedience», en Indian Socio-Legal Journal, vol. XXIII, 1997, pp. 11-37./ «La dé- sobéissance civile», en Revue Interdisciplinaire D’Études Juridiques, 39, 1997, pp. 27-67. / «Los precedentes de la desobediencia civil en el mundo griego», en Revista de la Facultad de Derecho de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, no 90, 1998, pp. 67-87. / «Principal realist theories of efficacy and obedience to the law», en el Indian Socio-Legal Journal, vol. XXV, no 1 y 2, 1999, pp. 21-41./ «Legal validity and obedience to the law», en el Indian Socio-Legal Journal, vol. XXV, no 1 y 2, 1999, pp. 89-101. / «La desobediencia civil como derecho», en Ca- dernos de Direito da UNIGRANRIO. Universidade do Grande Rio. Brasil. 1999, 1, pp. 15-29. / «Desobediencia civil y derecho de asilo», en Revista Hispano-Cubana, no 6, 2000, pp. 159-165. /«Legal validity and civil disobedience», India In- dian Institute of Comparative Law, dirigido por el profesor Agrawal 2000./ «La desobediencia civil y la Constitución española de 1978: ¿Un derecho a la desobediencia?», en prensa en el Libro Homenaje a Pablo Lucas Verdú. / «El desobediente civil ante el Derecho penal», en prensa en el Libro Homenaje a Antonio Hernández Gil. / «Legal justification for civil disobedience», Ponencia presentada al Congreso Mundial de Filosofía del Derecho, celebrado en Nueva York, del 23 al 30 de junio de 1999, en prensa. «Legal justification for civil disobedience. Is it possible?», en prensa en el Indian Socio-Legal Journal. 2000./ «¿Un derecho a desobedecer la ley por analogía? Ensayo de una justificación jurídica de la desobediencia civil a través del argumento analógico», en prensa en la Antología so- bre Derechos Humanos. Ayuntamiento de Tlanleplanta de Baz (Méjico)./ «Gue- rra, Moral y Derecho: sobre la justificación de la guerra» y «La objeción de con- ciencia y la insumisión como formas de desobediencia al Derecho», ambos artículos en prensa en Cadernos de Direito da UNIGRANRIO/ «Principales conséquences à propos de la possibilité de parler d’un droit à la désobéissance ci- vile sur le plan juridique», en prensa en la Revue Interdisciplinaire d’Études Ju- ridiques.[...] Sobre el tema se encuentran actualmente bajo nuestra dirección en la Universidad Complutense algunas tesis doctorales, como la de Stefani Borba de Rose Trunfo o la de Carmen Saez Cabrera. Mantenemos igualmente contactos con la profesora del University College of London y la Université Paris XIII, Sophie Turenne, especialista por su tesis doctoral en el tema de la desobediencia civil, desde sus años de estudio en el Keble College de Oxford.

 

From the same professor, Book "El ciudadano frente a la ley" (The citizen against the law) Ciudad Argentina, 2004.

Tanto los más conservadores como los más liberales suelen estar de acuerdo en el hecho de que tal vez un individuo no hace mal en determinadas circunstancias en violar la ley injusta. El desacuerdo se manifiesta en torno a las diversas respuestas que el Estado debería dar al gesto del desobediente. En la presente obra, de una forma clara y amena, se pasa revista a las principales formas de protesta ciudadana y estatal frente a normas ilegítimas. Se aborda el estudio en profundidad de temas de gran actualidad, como la desobediencia civil, la objeción de conciencia, la huelga, los delitos, el derecho de asilo, la revolución, el terrorismo, la rebelión, la resistencia, etc. se trata también la cuestión de la guerra en sus diversas manifestaciones, desde la guerra santa a la guerra en la actualidad, y se intenta ver en qué medida es posible justificar o no estas infracciones normativas. El libro sigue un enfoque a la vez jurídico, político y moral, y se acompaña de una exhaustiva bibliografía a pie de página. Recomendamos su lectura a todos aquellos que estén interesados en temas de obediencia y desobediencia a la ley y, en general, de Filosofía Política.

 

*Research recently done by Prof. Iturmendi Morales:

 

Sus publicaciones versan, fundamentalmente, sobre Teoría del Derecho y Sociología Jurídica. Entre las más recientes (posteriores a 1995) cabe señalar: "Acerca de Rudolf von Ihering (1818-1892) y el sistema de los juristas romanos" (1995), el prólogo a la traducción española del libro de François Ost "El sistema Jurídico entre orden y desorden" (1997), diversas publicaciones sobre Deontología, como "Deontología, función social y responsabilidad de las profesiones jurídicas" (1998), y también sobre Derechos Humanos, como la traducción al castellano y notas del articulo de Amartya Kumar Sen "Democracia y desarrollo. Derechos del hombre y diferencias culturales".