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Material and Formal Authorisation in Kelsen's Pure Theory*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

Stanley L. Paulson
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What sort of relation, according to the Pure Theory of Law, does a higher-order norm bear to a lower-order norm? Does the higher-order norm in effect subsume the lower-order norm? And if so, is subsumption sufficient for authorisation, such that subsumption of a norm under an appropriate higher-order norm authorises, say, a legal official's “choice” of that norm? This interpretation of authorisation in the Pure Theory of Law, fine as far as it goes, would be misleading if offered as a full statement. For Hans Kelsen in fact works with two types of authorisation, what I term material authorisation, wherein authorisation of a lower-order norm stems from the applicable higher-order norm, and formal authorisation, wherein authorisation of a lower-order norm flows from the power of the legal organ that creates, applies, or validates that norm.

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The Cambridge Law Journal , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , April 1980 , pp. 172 - 193
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Copyright © Cambridge Law Journal and Contributors 1980

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References

1 Harris, J. W., “Kelsen's Concept of Authority” (1977) 36 C.L.J. 353Google Scholar; I discuss Harris's interpretation in section VII below.

2 See Kelsen, Hans, “Vom Geltungsgrund des Rechts”Google Scholar in Völkerrecht und rechtliches Weltbild. Festschrift für Alfred Verdross, ed. Von Der Heydte, F. A., et al. (1960), pp. 157–165Google Scholar, reprinted in Die Wiener Rechtstheoretische Schule, ed. H., Klecatsky. et al. (1968)Google Scholar [hereinafter cited as Wiener Schule], Vol. II, pp. 1417–1428; Kelsen, Reine Rechtslehre, 2nd ed. (1960) [hereinafter cited as Reine Rechtslehre], §§ 4 (b), (d), 29 (f), 34 (b) (c), 35 (a) (b). (The English translation of the Reine Rechtslehre [Max Knight transl. 1967Google Scholar ] is inaccurate at some points and incomplete as well. Quotations in the text from the Reine Rechtslehre are my own translations and are cited by section number rather than page number to facilitate reference to the English translation.) See also Kelsen, Allgemeine Theorie der Normen, ed. K. Ringhofer and R. Walter (1979), pp. 82–84.

3 See Reine Rechtslehre, §§ 30(c), 34(a), 35(f); Merkl, Adolf, “Das Recht in Spiegel seiner Auslegung” (1917) 9 Deutsche RichterzeitungGoogle Scholar 162, 394, 443–450, reprinted under the title “Das Recht im Lichte seiner Anwendung” in Wiener Schule, Vol. I, pp. 1167, 1191–1201. See also Tur, Richard, “Positivism, Principles and Rules”Google Scholar in Perspectives in Jurisprudence, ed. E., Attwooll (1977), pp. 42Google Scholar, 62–63.

4 (1886) 118 U.S. 356.

5 (1907) 74 N.J.L. 455, 68 Atl. 90.

6 Reine Rechtslehre, § 35(j). See also Kelsen, Reine Rechtslehre, 1st ed. (1934), pp. 84–89; Kelsen, General Theory of Law and State (Anders Wedberg transl. 1945), pp. 153–156.

7 Merkl, Die Lehre von der Rechtskraft (1923), pp. 277–302; Merkl, , “Justizirrtum und Rechtswahrheit” (1925) 45 Zeitschrift für die gesamte StrafrechtswissenschaftCrossRefGoogle Scholar 452, 457–465, reprinted in Wiener Schule, Vol. I, pp. 195, 200–208.

8 See, e.g., “Juristischer Formalismus und reine Rechtslehre” (1929) 58 Juristische Wochenschrift 1723, where Kelsen, protesting the association of the Pure Theory with formalism, describes the latter as “the deduction of legal norms from legal concepts” and dismisses it as “naked natural law” (ibid., at p. 1724). On formalism and the Pure Theory generally, see Moore, Ronald, Legal Norms and Legal Science (1978), pp. 18–29.Google Scholar (Throughout the article I use “Pure Theory of Law” as a label for the legal philosophy of Hans Kelsen, Adolf Merkl, and others of the Vienna School of Legal Philosophy.)

9 Spokesmen for the Free Law School—among them, Eugen Ehrlich, Hermann Kantorowicz, and Ernst Fuchs—endorsed far-reaching judicial discretion, anticipating in certain respects the legal realist movement in America. See Werner Krawietz's helpful overview, “Freirechtslehre” in the Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, Vol. II (1972), pp. 1098–1102Google Scholar, and also, the paper by Fuchs's son: Foulkes, Albert S., “On the German Free Law School (Freirechtsschule)” (1969) 55 Archiv für Rechts und Sozialphilosophie 367.Google Scholar

10 As a stock pejorative expression in legal theory, “Begriffsjurisprudenz” like “mechanical jurisprudence” is familiar enough. But unlike the case with mechanical jurisprudence, where it is difficult to determine who, if anyone, ever defended the view, there is something of a consensus among leading German scholars that Georg Puchta is the quintessential representative of nineteenth century Begriffsjurisprudenz. (See, e.g., Larenz, Karl, Methodenlehre der Rechtswissenschaft, 3rd ed. (1975), pp. 20–26Google Scholar; Wieacker, Franz, Privatrechls geschichte der Neuzeit, 2nd ed. (1967), p. 400.Google Scholar) Puchta's conceptualism is evident in the following lines from Volume I of his Cursus der Institutionen (1841), at p. 36 (quoted in Larenz, op. cit., p. 22): “Now it is the task of science to identify legal propositions as systematically related to one another, in particular, as establishing conditions for one another and as deriving from one another, in order thereby to be able to trace the genealogy of the individual to its principle and, likewise, to be able to descend from the principles to their outermost branches. In this way legal propositions, concealed within the spirit of the national law, are brought to light… That is to say, these propositions only become visible as the product of a scientific deduction [einer wissenschaft lichen Deduktion.] Science thus emerges as a source of law…” (my translation).

11 See on this theme Schreier, Fritz, “Freirechtslehre und Weiner Schule” (1929) 4 Die JustizGoogle Scholar 321; Schild, Wolfgang, “Die Reine Rechtslehre”Google Scholar in Einführung in Rechtsphilosophie und Rechtstheorie der Gegenwart, ed. A., Kaufmann and W., Hassemer (1977), pp. 103–111.Google Scholar

12 Christoph Sigwart, Logic, 2nd ed. (Helen Dendy transl. 1895), Vol. I, p. 367.

13 See, e.g., Engisch, Karl, Einführung in das juristische Denken, 7th ed. (1977)Google Scholar, Chaps. 2–3; Wröblewski, Jerzy, “Legal Syllogism and Rationality of Judicial Decision” (1974) 5 RechtstheorieGoogle Scholar 33; Maccormick, Neil, Legal Reasoning and Legal Theory (1978)Google Scholar, Chap. 2. For an historical overview of the role played by subsumption in legal theory, see the valuable statement by Fiedler, Herbert, “Zur logischen Konzeption der Rechtsfindung aus dem Gesetz und ihren historischen Bedingungen”Google Scholar in Gesetzgebungstheorie, Juristische Logik, Zivil- und ProzeBrecht. Gedächtnisschrift für Jürgen Rödig, ed. U., Klug, et al. (1978), pp. 129–139.Google Scholar

14 See, respectively, Cornides, Thomas, “Logik der Normen”Google Scholar in Rechtstheorie und Rechtsinformatik, ed. Winkler, G. (1975), pp. 67Google Scholar, 74, and Tammelo, Ilmar, “Rechtslogik”Google Scholar in Einführung in Rechtsphilosophie und Rechtstheorie der Gegen wart, supra note 11, pp. 120, 122.

15 Kelsen, “Natural Law Doctrine and Legal Positivism” (first published in 1928), in Kelsen, General Theory, supra note 6, pp. 389(Appendix), 399–400; Kelsen, General Theory, ibid., at pp. 110–123; Kelsen, Reine Rechtslehre, 1 st ed. (1934), pp. 62–67; Reine Rechtslehre, § 34(a)–(d). See also Walter, Robert, Der Aujbau der Rechtsordnung, 2nd ed. (1974), pp. 32–34.Google Scholar

16 Reine Rechtslehre, § 34 (b).

17 Ibid. Kelsen says “presupposed” (“vorausgesetzt”) where I have inserted “basic” in brackets. A presupposed norm is not, strictly speaking, applicable in the case of the static normative system, where the content of the basic norm is understood as giving expression to a self-evident truth. It is precisely because Kelsen has no confidence in talk of self-evident truths that he moves to a pre supposed norm—but that move marks the shift from a static to a dynamic normative system. Kelsen's slip here, speaking of the basic norm in the static system as a presupposed norm, does not occur in earlier statements on the static system. See, e.g., the German version of “Natural Law Doctrine and Legal Positivism, ” supra note 15, namely: Die philosophischen Grundlagen der Naturrechtslehre und des Rechtspositivismus (1928)Google Scholar, 18–19, reprinted in Wiener Schule, Vol. I, pp. 281, 292–293.

18 Reine Rechtslehre, § 34(b). See also Kelsen's valedictory lecture, “What is Justice?” delivered at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1952. (Peter Heath's translation of the lecture in Kelsen, Essays in Legal and Moral Philosophy. ed. O. Weinberger (1973), pp. 1–26, is preferable to the earlier English version in Kelsen, What is Justice? (1957), pp. 1–24, 376–378.)

19 Reine Rechtslehre, § 34(b).

20 Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651), Chaps. 14–21, 25–26, 29–30.

21 See Raz, Joseph, “Kelsen's Theory of the Basic Norm” (1974) 19 American Journal of JurisprudenceCrossRefGoogle Scholar 94, 97, reprinted in Raz, The Authority of Law (1979), pp. 122Google Scholar, 126–127, to which I am indebted here. Textual support for Raz's interpretation of the basic norm as an authorising (or power-conferring) norm may be found in Reine Rechtslehre, § 6(d), and in Kelsen, “Der Begriff der Rechtsordnung” (1958) 1 Logique et Analyse 150, 154, reprinted in Wiener Schule, Vol. II, pp. 1395, 1400.

22 Reine Rechtslehre, § 29(f).

23 Ibid., § 35 (f).

24 See Merkl, “Das Recht im Spiegel seiner Auslegung, ” supra note 3, at p. 448, and in Wiener Schule, Vol. I, at p. 1197.

25 By the “validity” of a norm Kelsen has in mind its “specific existence” (Reine Rechtslehre, § 4(c)), to be distinguished from its efficacy, which Kelsen understands as a condition of validity (ibid.). The role of efficacy in the Pure Theory raises fundamental problems, as the penetrating remarks in Dias, R. W. M., Jurisprudence, 4th ed. (1976), pp. 495–499Google Scholar, make clear.

26 (1912) 225 U.S. 227.

27 (1798) 3 U.S. (3 Dall.) 386, 390.

28 Supra note 26, at p. 242.

29 See generally Tribe, Laurence H., American Constitutional Law (1978), pp. 477–482.Google Scholar

30 (1944) 323 U.S. 214.

31 Corwin, Edward S., Total War and the Constitution (1947), p. 91.Google Scholar

32 (1943) 320 U.S. 81.

33 See Ex parte Endo (1944) 323 U.S. 283, 297.Google Scholar

34 Supra note 30, at pp. 217–218.

35 The constraint stems from the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment rather than the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth, For the latter, invoked in cases of racial discrimination brought against the various state governments, is precluded here by the fact that the action was brought against the Federal Government. See Bolling v. Sharpe (1954) 347 U.S. 497Google Scholar, Which is now the standard authority on this use of the Fifth Amendment.

36 Supra note 30, at p. 223.

37 See Rostow, Eugene V., “The Japanese American Cases—A Disaster” (1945) 54 Yale Law Journal 489CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dembitz, Nanetle, “Racial Discrimination and the Military Judgement: The Supreme Court's Korematsu and Endo Decisions” (1945) 45 Columbia Law Review 175CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Grodzins, Morton, Americans Betrayed. Politics and the Japanese Evacualion (1949)Google Scholar; and, above all, Tenbroek, Jacobus, Barnhart, Edward N., and Matson, Floyd W., Prejudice, War and the Constitution (1954)Google Scholar. the Minority view is represented by, inter alios, Fairman, Charles, “The Law of Martial Rule and the National Emergency” (1942) 55 Harvard Law Review 1253, and byCrossRefGoogle ScholarWiener, Frederick B., Book Review (1950) 63 Harvard Law Review 549CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 Supra note 30, at p. 216.

39 See, e.g., Loving v. Virginia (1967) 388 U.S. 1, 11.Google Scholar

40 Supra note 30, at p. 219.

41 Quoted in Koremastu, supra note 30, at p. 236 (Murphy J., dissenting)

42 See tenBroek, et al., supra note 37, at pp. 296–299.

43 Kempuer, Robert M. W., “The Enemy Alien Problem in the Present War” (1940) 34 American Journal of International Law 443CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 444–448, and House Report No. 2124 (77th Cong., 2nd Sess.), pp. 280–281, both cited in Korematsu, supra note 30, at p. 242 (Murphy J., dissenting).

44 See tenBroek, et al., supra note 37, at p. 300.

45 See ibid.., at pp. 11–62.

46 My legal realist lacks, I'm afraid, the remarkable inventiveness of the realist portrayed by D'Amato, Anthony in “The Limits of Legal Realism” (1978) 87 Yale Law Journal 468.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

47 See Reine Rechtslehre, § 35(f); Merkl, Rechtskraft, supra note 7, at p. 297.

48 See Reine Rechtslehre, § 35(j); Kelsen, General Theory, supra note 6, at pp.136, 154–155, 158–159: Merkl, Rechtskraft, supra note 7, passim.

49 See Reine Rechtslehre, §§34 (e), 35 (a), (f).

50 See references at note 3 supra.

51 See Reine Rechtslehre, § 35(j); Kelsen, Reine Rechtslehre, 1st ed. (1934), pp. 85–86; , Kelsen, “Wesen und Entwicklung der Staatsgerichtsbarkeit” (1929) 5 Verhandlungen der Deutschen Staatsrechtslehrer 30Google Scholar, 46, reprinted in Wiener Schule, Vol. II, pp. 1813, 1829–1830.

52 See, e.g., Kelsen, “Law and Logic” (first published in 1965), in Kelsen, Essays, supra note 18, pp. 228, 246–247.

53 Kelsen, “The Idea of Natural Law” (first published in 1928), in Kelsen, Essays, supra note 18, pp. 27, 42. See also Kelsen, Allgemeine Staatslehre(1925), pp. 233–235.

54 See references at note 6supra.

55 Kelsen, General Theory, supra note 6, at p. 156.

56 A rejoinder to the sceptic along these lines is developed at some length in Rescher, Nicholas, Methodological Pragmatism(1977), pp. 191–197.Google Scholar

57 Harris, J. W., “Kelsen's Concept of Authority” (1977) 36 C.L.J. 353.Google Scholar As is evident from the Kelsenian texts Harris cites (see, e.g., ibid., at p. 354, n. 3), the Pervasive notion in the Pure Theory is empowerment or authorisation (Ermäachtigung), not authority (Autorilät).When Kelsen does speak of the latter, it is usually with respect to a “normsetzende Autorität,” that is, an authority empowered to “set” or issue norms.

58 Ibid., at p. 358.

59 Harris spells out his interpretation in the idiom of normative propositions rather than that of norms; my shift back to the language of norms affects in no way the substantive issues raised by the doctrine of authorisation.

60 I have developed this notion under the rubric of “presumptive legal validity”in “Neue Grundlagen für einen Begriff der Rechtsgeltung” (1979)Google Scholar 65 Archivfür Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie l, and have applied “Presumptive legal validity” to the problem of conflicting legal norms in “Zum Problem der Normenkonflikte” (1980) 66 Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie (forthcoming).

61 See Reine Rechtslehre, § 35(j).

62 Harris, supra note 57, at p. 358.

63 Ibid., at p. 359.

64 Reine Rechtslehre, § 35(j).

65 See references at note 7 supra.

66 Merkl, “Justizirrtum und Rechtswahrheit, ” supra note 7, at p. 460, and in Wiener Schule, Vol. I, at p. 203.

67 Here I have found helpful and congenial the ideas in Coval, S. C. and Smith, J.C., “The Causal Theory of Law” (1977) 36 C.L.J. 110Google Scholar; Lon, L.Fuller, “Reason and Fiat in Case Law” (1946) 59 Harvard Law Review 376Google Scholar; Pound, Roscoe, “Theories of Law” (1912) 22 Yale Law Journal 114CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Selznick, Philip; “Sociology and Natural Law” (1961) 6 Natural Law Forum 84Google Scholar, reprinted in The Social Organization of Law, ed. Black, D. and Mileski, M. (1973), pp. 16–40.Google Scholar