Legal Certainty and Correctness |
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| Authors: | Robert Alexy |
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| Affiliation: | Christian Albrechts University, Faculty of Law, Kiel, GermanyI should like to thank Stanley L. Paulson for suggestions and advice on matters of English style. |
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| Abstract: | What is the relation between legal certainty and correctness? This question poses one of the perpetual problems of the theory and practice of law—and for this reason: The answer turns on the main question in legal philosophy, the question of the concept and the nature of law. Thus, in an initial step, I will briefly look at the concept and the nature of law. In a second step, I will attempt to explain what the concept and the nature of law, thus understood, imply for the relation between legal certainty and correctness. Here three issues will be considered: first, the Radbruch formula as an answer to the problem of extreme injustice; second, the special case thesis, which claims that legal argumentation is a special case of general practical argumentation; and, third, the problem of the judicial development of the law. |
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