The aim of this article is to analyse Radbruch’'s formula (lex iniustissima non est lex) with regard to the notions it contains and to indicate that it expresses a basic problem of philosophy of law linked to the discussion between legal positivism and the doctrines of natural law. That analysis underpins the proposal for a possible  rational compromise between the two standpoints. The main problem in the dispute between the rival doctrines amounts to the adoption of some material criterion for defining gross injustice, whilst the background to the dispute is the functioning of the principle which states that law is not retroactive.

The purpose of this paper is to present a metaphysical analysis of one of the main theses of legal positivism, namely that legal facts are ultimately determined by social facts alone. A short analysis of the notions of social and legal facts is followed by a presentation of possible accounts of the relation of determination. Three alternative accounts are discussed: the reduction of legal facts to social facts, the supervenience of legal facts on social facts and the grounding of legal facts by social facts. The first and second accounts are dismissed as unsatisfactory. The account of determination as a relation of metaphysical grounding appears to be promising, but creates difficulties with explaining the normative nature of legal facts.

Constructing a normative theory of legal interpretation involves difficulties of various types. One problem is the adoption of certain cognitive assumptions concerning the choice of the legal articles that are subject to interpretation. Another difficulty is ascertaining what determines the rationality of the interpretive activities pursued in accordance with the proposed directives of interpretation. The third obstacle is the need to harmonise the theory of legal interpretation with the dialogical nature of understanding on one hand, and with the historicity of legal discourse on the other.

This paper explores the tension between ethics and law in the theory of Emmanuel Lévinas. Institutions and ethics have different relations with individuals in their ‘uniqueness’ and ‘legal subjectivity’. After unmasking the ambivalence of positive law, Lévinas issued a robust appeal for laws to be anchored in civic discourse. They should also be orientated towards the pre-original rights of man. In Lévinas’s writings, the notions of justice and the ‘Third’ become increasingly important. The author has followed that evolution and sketched the framework of a sceptical philosophyof law according to Lévinas, irrespective of his apparent predilection for unconditional ethics.

The author uses the Nietzschean metaphor of the death of God to depict the condition of modern jurisprudence, which, hitherto based on the positivist paradigm, must now deal with anti-foundationalist and sceptical tendencies in contemporary philosophy.

The objective of this article is to provide an answer to the question: ‘Is there an essential relationship between the weighing of values in law and the rejection of the possibility of the existence of absolute values?’ In other words, we can ask whether the fact alone of weighing values in law implies the relativity of these values.
The author, following Heinrich Hubmann, proposes a distinction between the absoluteness of values themselves and the relativisation of their weight in an instance of specific application. She argues that the weighing of values does not exclude the existence of absolute values and that the feature of absoluteness belongs to basic and widely applicable values. However, in an instance where conflict arises between them, their weight may vary, depending on the specific circumstances.
The author concludes that relativisation concerns not a value itself, which remains an absolute value, but its weight within the context of the requirements of different values and the requirements stemming from the nature of things.

The aim of this text is to challenge the tendency, discernible in legal discourse, to limit the vision of man as a legal subject to the construction of a natural person. As a category of private law, the subjectivity of the natural person cannot reflect the complexity of the relationships in which a man functions in the domain regulated by law or take into account the features that characterise him with regard to law. Hence the author attempts to construct another, more universal, model of human legal personality, which can be reliably applied to the whole of the law

In this article, the author discusses the irreducibility of the norms of human rights to the rules of logic and to a syllogistic model for the application of law. She discusses the proposal of applying hermeneutical method to the process of adjudication, which could lead to a correspondence between the meanings of legal facts and norms.

This paper concerns the relationship between the development of the doctrine of binding precedent in English jurisprudence and the evolution of British legal positivism, with particular focus on the development of judicial practice and the search for the ultimate criteria of validity. Based on examples from English judicial practice, the article explores the dilemmas of imperative legal theory. The proposed hypothesis is based on the assumption that the evolution of the doctrine of binding precedent in English law became an essential factor behind refined legal positivism in general and the concept of the rule of recognition in particular.

This article focuses on the conceptual analysis of law and morality from the perspective of their relationship with the concepts of violence and coercion. The author conducts a phenomenological analysis of the concepts of law and morality, pointing out their ambiguity and the difficulties with defining their mutual relations. This analysis leads to the conclusion that three phenomena (law, morality and positive law) must be taken into consideration for those relations to be correctly defined. This allows the content of positive law to be shielded against dogmatism and ideologies. The author also challenges the thesis of a special role of morality in social relationships and strongly emphasises the crucial, primary role of positive law in those relations

The aim of this article is to present Kaarlo Tuori’s theory of law termed Critical Legal Positivism (CLP). It outlines the fundamental claims of CLP with regard to law, conceiving law as a complex, dialectical concept combining the opposing (to some extent) elements described in legal tradition as ratio and voluntas (rational standards and political will). According to CLP, this complexity is best represented by a theoretical model of law as a multi-layered order, containing a surface layer (positive law), a legal culture and a ‘deep culture’. All three layers, according to a positivistic account, are regarded as socially created, yet they differ in their nature and in the way they come into being. A reconstruction of those layers is followed by analysis of the main functions of the deeper levels of legal order. On one hand, those deeper strata are said to discharge a limiting and critical role (they restrict the discretionary will of law-making and law-applying authorities); on the other, they constitute and legitimise positive law. By the same token, they serve as a medium between law and public opinion.

The concept of legal validity is regarded within the dominant legal-positivistic account of law as a non-gradable concept: a legal rule is either valid or non-valid. However, this account of validity is criticised by some scholars for being too strict and rigid. An attractive alternative would appear to be offered by Alf Ross’s account of validity as a probabilistic concept. Ross assumed that the stronger the predictions of judicial behaviour that a given rule generates, the higher the probability that can be assigned to its validity. However, this account of legal validity is by no means uncontroversial. In this paper, four objections against it are formulated: apparent gradability, problematic ascertainability, the normative insignificance of probabilistic information and the neglecting of the normativity of legal rules. These objections are treated in this paper as strong grounds for rejecting Ross’s claim that predictions of judicial behaviour formulated on the basis of rules are conceptually linked to their validity (i.e. they define their meaning); it is argued in the paper that they are merely a way of testing empirical hypotheses concerning the application (effectiveness) of legal rules.

The subject of this paper is the status of the most fundamental legal disagreements. Since all legal disagreements are conceptually dependent on theoretical assumptions about law (the grounds of law), they should be seen as theoretical disagreements in the Dworkinean sense. After an analysis of the basic concepts of the grounds of law, theoretical disagreements are evaluated from the epistemic point of view. By assumption, all philosophical disagreements, including fundamental legal disagreements, are disagreements between epistemic peers, since there occurs a symmetry between the evidence in favour of each of the proposed theories. In order to avoid the scepticism that such a diagnosis may lead to, we should engage in pragmatic considerations of the status of legal theory in general.