Abstract
In contemporary legislation theory, legislation is approached from roughly two different models: law as symbol vs. law as instrument. Each model offers its own specific perspective from which in concrete cases legislation can be described and evaluated. In the Law As Symbol (LAS) model legislation is seen as an ongoing communicative and interactive process in which various actors in society—the legislator, officials and citizens—work together on an equal level to create and implement legislation. In the Law As Instrument (LAI) model legislation is conceived, on the other hand, as a command that is issued by the legislature, from a position above or outside society, in order to achieve a specific policy goal. In this chapter I explore, building on these two models, how we can account for the bindingness of law. How to explain or justify the general expectation that legal norms are, or have to be, respected? As I argue, these models are not mutually exclusive but are co-dependent on each other. For law to function as a command (according to the LAI model), the legislature has to succeed in communicating its message to society. Conversely, to become a convincing symbol (within the LAS model), the law cannot remain a matter of discussion forever; the process of communication and interaction has to stop at some point and the law has to be applied unilaterally and enforced in case of non-compliance. Moreover, I intend to demonstrate that both models have difficulties in explaining law’s authority. How can a command or communication in itself generate legal duties? What is missing in both models, in my view, is a reflexion on the role ideology plays within the law. Before one can give commands to citizens (in the LAI model) or enter into meaningful conversations with them (in the LAS model), the existing order has to be accepted as a legitimate legal order. In other words, law has to presuppose its own authority but cannot produce it—only ideology can.
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Notes
- 1.
In this context, ‘law’ refers to the general set of legal norms issued by officials who have been granted, within a certain legal system, the competency to create law. It corresponds to what Van der Burg (2014, p. 99) calls ‘enacted law’ as opposed to ‘interactional law’ comprised of implicit rules. ‘Legislation’ is a subset of this general set, consisting of legal norms issued by the legislature. I focus here in particular on legislation created by the highest legislature within a legal system (that is, Parliament in a nation state).
- 2.
- 3.
- 4.
On the distinction between the two approaches see, amongst others, Van der Burg (2005). I believe this distinction to be exaggerated, mainly upheld for polemical reasons. However, I am willing to follow here the self-description of the interactive legislative approach.
- 5.
In Van Klink (1998, pp. 48–76 and 83–126; summarised in English in: Van Klink 2016b, pp. 21–28) I distinguish two senses of symbolic legislation, a negative and a positive one. Whereas symbolic legislation in the negative sense (in the traditional socio-legal understanding, see for instance Gusfield 1976) is issued merely for political purposes (for instance, to simulate power in a crisis situation) in order to preserve the status quo, symbolic legislation in the positive sense promotes communication and interaction and aims at changing current ways of thinking and acting by means of persuasion.
- 6.
I consider this to be the main sources which adherents of the LAS model refer to (mostly implicitly) when presenting their version of the LAI model. The LAI model is very similar to the “Command and Control” model discussed by Manuel Calvo García (2018).
- 7.
Poort (2013, p. 31) presents “an ideal-typical model of the interactive legislative approach”.
- 8.
In fact, descriptive and normative statements are not always clearly distinguished in symbolic legislation theory, which has been the cause of some confusion (see Griffiths 2005, p. 160n.). I cannot rule out the possibility that what I have presented here as normative claims can also be understood, in part or in whole, descriptively. What I intend to do is to give a plausible version of the LAS model. Since most of the claims are, in my view, so plainly counterfactual (i.e., at odds with legislative practice, see further Sect. 4.4), I take these claims to be normative.
- 9.
- 10.
In her phronetic theory of legislation, Helen Xanthaki also makes a strict distinction between means and ends (see Chap. 2 of this volume).
- 11.
In legal realism, courts have much more freedom to bend the law for social purposes. In his study of legal realism, De Been (2008, p. 24) puts it as follows: “Concepts and categories were shaped and molded by their facility in dealing with real-world problems.”
- 12.
As Schauer (2015, p. 92) writes: “Yet although we know that a legal system could in theory exist without sanctions and without coercion, we know as well that, with somewhere between few and no exceptions, no such legal systems actually exist.”
- 13.
Fuller explores various forms of social regulation, as part of his unfinished project called “eunomics”, or “the science, theory, or study of good order and workable social arrangements” (Fuller 1981, p. 62). Beside legislation or “officially declared law”, he mentions various “principles of social ordering”, among which adjudication, mediation, contract and managerial direction (ibid., pp. 170–171).
- 14.
According to Hart (1961, p. 124), (legal or other) language has an “open texture” and “uncertainty at the borderline”.
- 15.
- 16.
On the reciprocity between lawgiver and subject, see in more detail Fuller (1969, pp. 137–140).
- 17.
Rood (2012, p. 91) introduced this concept in his analysis of the way in which Dutch police officials exert and establish their authority.
- 18.
The Dutch word ‘kunstwerk’ covers both meanings.
- 19.
This definition is taken, with some minor adaptions, from Van Klink (2016b, pp. 29–30).
- 20.
That is, the power in both senses of capacity and competency to create or maintain order within a certain social domain through the use of law or other means.
- 21.
According to Ricœur (1986, p. 172), “the judgment on ideology is always the judgment from a Utopia”. For the present purposes, I will not deal here with the relation between ideology and Utopia; that will be the topic of a forthcoming article, entitled ‘The Rule of Law as Ideology and Utopia’ (under construction).
- 22.
As George H. Taylor puts it in the (very helpful) editor’s introduction to the English edition (Ricœur 1986, p. xix).
- 23.
Van der Burg, as quoted in Sect. 4.2.
- 24.
Westerman (2005, p. 314) speaks of the “friendly face of the persuasive legislator” under which, according to her, “some risks” are hidden from view, which are discussed in the next paragraph.
- 25.
- 26.
I am focussing here on the political implications of the legislative theory presented by the LAI model. So it is very well possible that legal philosophers whom I have connected to this model endorse of have endorsed, in their private lives, another political ideology (as is the case, for instance, with Kelsen who was a social-democrat, see Dyzenhaus 1999: chapter 3).
- 27.
See Berlin (2002, pp. 170–178).
- 28.
See Böckenförde (2006, p. 36).
- 29.
Kelsen (1967, p. 70).
- 30.
- 31.
See Berlin (2002, pp. 180–182).
- 32.
- 33.
Van Klink (2012, pp. 274–276).
- 34.
I thank Wim Voermans for making a suggestion along these lines at the International Conference on Legisprudence, ‘Conceptions and Misconceptions of Legislation’, University of Zaragoza, 22/24 February 2018.
- 35.
The concept ‘democratic culture of justification’ is taken from Dyzenhaus (2015, pp. 425–426). What the culture of justification entails for the legislature, is further explored in part II of this volume.
- 36.
Leonard Cohen, ‘Hallejulah’, from the album Various Positions (1984).
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van Klink, B. (2019). Legislation, Communication, and Authority. How to Account for the Bindingness of Law?. In: Oliver-Lalana, A. (eds) Conceptions and Misconceptions of Legislation. Legisprudence Library, vol 5. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12068-9_4
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