Operative Goals and Background Goals in Legislative Argumentation

Abstract

Another important branch of juridical methodology relates to the theory and methodology of legislation, i.e., the principles guiding the achievement of well-written statutory texts. This chapter deals with legislative drafting and legislative argumentation. A distinction is made between two kinds of legislative goals, viz., operative goals, i.e., those goals that the legislator is trying to attain by means of a particular statute, and background goals, i.e., a more general and inflexible set of goals that ranges the particular legislative project under a wider context, comprising systematic goals (the smooth insertion of the new statute in the already existing legal system), praxeological goals (that the statute will be possible to comply with without too much difficulties), legal-ideological goals (that the law-state claims to legal certainty, equality, and security are met), and economic goals (that the fulfilment of the operative goals are worthwhile from a purely economic point of view).