Judges and Adjudication in Constitutional Democracies: A View from Legal Realism

204 Pages·2020·2.427 MB·English

by  Pierluigi Chiassoni, Bojan Spaić

Law and Philosophy Library 135
Pierluigi Chiassoni
Bojan Spaić  Editors
Judges and
Adjudication in
Constitutional
Democracies:
A View from Legal
Realism
Law and Philosophy Library
Volume 135
SeriesEditors
FranciscoJ.Laporta,AutonomousUniversityofMadrid,Madrid,Spain
FrederickSchauer,UniversityofVirginia,Charlottesville,VA,USA
TorbenSpaak,StockholmUniversity,Stockholm,Sweden
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HumbertoÁvila,UniversityofSãoPaulo,SãoPaulo,Brazil
ZenonBankowski,UniversityofEdinburgh,Edinburgh,UK
PaoloComanducci,UniversityofGenoa,Genova,Italy
HughCorder,UniversityofCapeTown,CapeTown,SouthAfrica
DavidDyzenhaus,UniversityofToronto,Toronto,Canada
ErnestoGarzónValdés,JohannesGutenbergUniversity,Mainz,Germany
RiccaroGuastini,UniversityofGenoa,Genova,Italy
HoHockLai,NationalUniversityofSingapore,Singapore,Singapore
JohnKleinig,CityUniversityofNewYork,NewYorkCity,NY,USA
ClaudioMichelon,UniversityofEdinburgh,Edinburgh,UK
PatriciaMindus,UppsalaUniversity,Uppsala,Sweden
YasutomoMorigiwa,MeijiUniversity,Tokyo,Japan
GiovanniBattistaRatti,UniversityofGenoa,Genova,Italy
WojchiechSadurski,UniversityofSydney,Sydney,Australia
HoracioSpector,UniversityofSanDiego,SanDiego,USA
MichelTroper,ParisNanterreUniversity,Nanterre,France
CarlWellman,WashingtonUniversity,St.Louis,USA
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(cid:129) ć
Pierluigi Chiassoni Bojan Spai
Editors
Judges and Adjudication in
Constitutional Democracies:
A View from Legal Realism
Editors
PierluigiChiassoni BojanSpaić
UniversityofGenova UniversityofBelgrade
Genova,Italy Belgrade,Serbia
ISSN1572-4395 ISSN2215-0315 (electronic)
LawandPhilosophyLibrary
ISBN978-3-030-58185-5 ISBN978-3-030-58186-2 (eBook)
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Contents
Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
PierluigiChiassoniandBojanSpaić
TheRolesofJudgesinDemocracies:ARealisticView. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
BrianLeiter
IsRealismatOddswithConstitutionalDemocracy?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
PierluigiChiassoni
Onthe(Un)ChangingJudgeIconsandTheirCreators:OnDeborah,
CokeandMontesquieu,PosnerandBarak,andSomeOthers. . . . . . . . 65
JasminkaHasanbegović
AnExerciseinLegalRealism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
RiccardoGuastini
ACausalViewofJudicialInterpretation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
MichelTroper
Rule(s)ofRecognitionandCanonsofInterpretation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
LukaBurazinandGiovanniBattistaRatti
LegalRealismandLegalDoctrine. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
DanPriel
EpistemicAuthorityandLegalInterpretation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
BojanSpaić
v
Editors and Contributors
About the Editors
Pierluigi Chiassoni is Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Genova
School of Law and a permanent fellow of Tarello Institute for Legal Philosophy.
Hisjurisprudentialinterestsspanfromeconomicanalysisoflawtolegalinterpreta-
tion and human rights. His main publications include Positivismo giuridico. Una
investigazione analitica (Mucchi Editore, 2013), Tecnica dell’interpretazione
giuridica (il Mulino, 2007), El discreto placer del positivismo jurídico (Externado
deColombia,2016),Latradiciónanalíticaenlafilosofiadelderecho.DeBenthama
Kelsen (Palestra, 2017), Ensayos de metajurisprudencia analítica (Olejnik, 2017),
andInterpretationWithoutTruth(Springer,2019).
Bojan Spaić is AssistantProfessor of Jurisprudence at the University of Belgrade
Faculty of Law and Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow of the Institute for
PublicLaw,ConstitutionalLawandLegalPhilosophyoftheUniversityofHeidel-
berg. He has edited books in English and in Serbian including Jurisprudence and
Political Philosophy in the 21st Century: Reassessing Legacies (with Miodrag
Jovanović, published by Peter Lang, 2012), Fundamental Rights: Justification and
Interpretation(withKennethEinarHimma,ElevenInternationalPublishing,2016),
and Unpacking Normativity: Conceptual, Normative, and Descriptive Issues (with
Kenneth Einar Himma and Miodrag Jovanović, Hart Publishing, 2018). He has
published three books in Serbian and papers in Serbian and English regarding
legalinterpretation,ontologicalandmethodologicalhermeneutics,andpragmatism.
Contributors
LukaBurazin UniversityofZagreb,Zagreb,Croatia
PierluigiChiassoni UniversityofGenova,Genova,Italy
vii
viii EditorsandContributors
Riccardo Guastini University of Genova, Tarello Institute for Legal Philosophy,
Genova,Italy
JasminkaHasanbegović UniversityofBelgradeFacultyofLaw,Belgrade,Serbia
Brian Leiter Karl N. Llewellyn Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the
Center for Law, Philosophy and Human Values, The University of Chicago Law
School,Chicago,IL,USA
DanPriel YorkUniversityOsgoodeHallLawSchool,Toronto,ON,Canada
GiovanniBattistaRatti UniversityofGenoa,Genova,Italy
BojanSpaić UniversityofBelgrade,Belgrade,Serbia
MichelTroper UniversityParisNanterre,Nanterre,France
Introduction
PierluigiChiassoniandBojanSpaić
Inthelastcoupleofdecades,threetopicshavegainedprominenceintheprovinceof
jurisprudential inquiries: (1) legal interpretation; (2) legal realism; (3) the role of
judgesincontemporaryconstitutionaldemocracies.
The first topic, legal interpretation, has been investigated both in general, and
with particular attention being paid to judicial interpretation. The interest for the
subjecthasbeenspurredbytheoreticalandpracticalpurposesalike.Onthetheoret-
ical side, legal interpretation (mostly in the judicial and juristic varieties) has been
investigatedinordertobringtotheforeitsnature,purpose,andtools,alsobytaking
stock of philosophy of language and theories of meaning.1 On the practical side,
judicialandjuristicinterpretationhasbeeninvestigatedasthesubjectwherenorma-
tive outlooks compete for providing judges and jurists with “the proper theory of
interpretation”.Herethepointwasnotunderstandingwhatlegalinterpretationis;it
was, rather, suggesting how it should be performed (to which goals, by which
means),inorderforittobe“legallycorrect”.2
The second topic, legal realism, hasbeen the subject ofa widespread revivalof
interest. Thiswas due toa combination ofthree jurisprudential concerns.First,the
need both to achieve a thorough and deep understanding of the realist legacy
(American Legal Realism, Scandinavian Legal Realism, Italian Legal Realism,
French Legal Realism), outside of any stereotyped or self-serving picture, and to
1See,e.g.,Guastini(2011a,b,c),Marmor(2014)andChiassoni(2019).
2See,e.g.,Scalia(1997).
P.Chiassoni(*)
UniversityofGenova,Genova,Italy
e-mail:[email protected]
B.Spaić(*)
UniversityofBelgrade,Belgrade,Serbia
e-mail:[email protected]
©SpringerNatureSwitzerlandAG2021 1
P.Chiassoni,B.Spaić(eds.),JudgesandAdjudicationinConstitutional
Democracies:AViewfromLegalRealism,LawandPhilosophyLibrary135,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58186-2_1
2 P.ChiassoniandB.Spaić
cast light upon the import of such a legacy to present theoretical and practical
purposes.3 Second, the need to explore in a dispassionate way the relationships
betweenlegalrealismandlegalpositivism—theneed,ifyoulike,tosolvethelegal
realism/legal positivism riddle.4 Third, the need to establish a new theoretical
paradigm(the“NewLegalRealism”),takingstockofOldRealism’skeenonsocial
sciences.5
Finally, the third topic, i.e., the role of judges in constitutional democracy, has
becomeahotlydebatedissue,surelyasaneffectoftheideologicalwarfarelaunched
in American jurisprudence against “judicial activism”, but also due to the general
interest—for jurists and citizens at large—in establishing the “proper” powers and
limits of adjudication and judicial review in a constitutional and democratic state:
i.e., those powers and limits that would grant full legitimacy to the judiciary as a
separatefunctionofgovernment.6
The three strands of inquiry—legal interpretation, legal realism, and the role of
the judiciary in constitutional democracies—are obviously intertwined. They are
seldombroughttogetherinasystematicway,though.Thepresentvolumepurports
to fill that gap. By collecting the contributions of scholars from different legal and
philosophicalbackgrounds,thevolumepurportstodealwithjudicialinterpretation
andtherole(s)ofjudgesincontemporarydemocraciesfromthestandpointoflegal
realismasarevisitedandsophisticatedjurisprudentialoutlook.
Theissuesaddressedinthevolumeincludedeterminingtheideasmakingupthe
coreoflegalrealism,exploringtherelationoflegalrealismtolegalpositivism(inthe
conventionalist, Hartian, variety), investigating the effective and desirable role of
judges in contemporary constitutional democracies, identifying the boundaries of
judicialinterpretationastheyappearfromarealiststandpoint,aswellasconsidering
someskepticaloutlooksontheverypositionsofcontemporarylegalrealism.
In the essay “The Roles of Judges in Democracies: A Realistic View”, Brian
Leiterprovidesarealistaccountofdemocracyandarealistaccountofthe“obliga-
tions” of the judges working therein. This allows him to proceed to answering the
mainquestionbygeneralizingabouttheinfluenceofactualfunctioningdemocracies
onjudgesandadjudication.Inasituationinwhichinterpretativepracticesinevery
legalsystemgivejudges broaddiscretionininterpretation andadjudication,andin
3Onlegalrealismingeneral,see,e.g.,Guastini(2011a,b,c)andHanoch(2017).OnAmericanlegal
realism, see,e.g.: Leiter (2007)and Hanoch (2013).Themajor strand of Italian legal realism is
represented by Genoese legal realism. Genoese legal realism originated in the investigations of
Giovanni Tarello (1934–1987), as a development of ideas from American and Scandinavian
Realism,combinedwithagenerousdoseofanalyticphilosophy(see,e.g.,Giovanni1962,1974,
1980),andhasitspresentmostauthoritativecontributionsintheworksofRiccardoGuastini(see.,
e.g.,Guastini1993,2004,2011a,b,c).OnGenoeselegalrealism,see,e.g.,Chiassoni(1999)and
FerrerandRatti(2011).FrenchlegalrealismhasitsforefrontcontributionsintheworksofMichel
Troper:see,e.g.,Troper(2001,2007,2011).
4See,e.g.,Leiter(2019).
5See,e.g.:Merzetal.(2016a,b)andKlugandMerry(2016).
6See,e.g.,Barak(2008)andFerrajoli(2017).