法的渊源与法的形式界分

奥斯汀以来的法律学人,虽试图在法的渊源和法的形式之间踩出清晰的路径,却终未获取如意的结局。迄今,无论英美欧陆抑或中国学界,仍然普遍混淆两者的界限,以致把不是法的东西视为法,把未然的法和已然的法、可能的法和正式的法混为一谈,在法律生活中就经常淡化法和非法的边界并由此遁离法治原则。历来法学流派的分野,在很大程度上正表现在对法的渊源和法的形式取不同态度方面。然而法的渊源和法的形式的确不容混淆,它们本是两种事物,内涵两种价值,代表法的形成过程中两个不同阶段和表现形态。

Delimitation between Sources of Law and Forms of Law

Law scholars since Austin, although tried to tread a clear path between sources of law and forms of law, never yielded satisfactory results. To date, the academic circles in English-American, European continent and China still generally confuse the boundary between these two, regarding things not laws as laws, mixing up will-be laws and already-laws, possible laws and formal laws. Thus in legal life, the borderline between legal things and illegal things is always blurred, departing from the principle of rule of law. The dividing lines of various schools of jurisprudence in history at a considerable extent manifested in different attitudes adopted towards sources of law and forms of law. But sources of law and forms of law truly couldn't be confounded. They are two separate things in nature, contain two kinds of value, and represent two different stages of development and states of expression in the process of formation of law.