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Legisprudence considers a variety of perspectives and relies on contributions from numerous different disciplines. Rather than providing examples of the various possible approaches to legisprudential studies, this book – bringing together lawyers and legal theorists from seven different countries – highlights two aspects of the many disciplines involved. Firstly, it discusses theoretical abstraction, which borders on, or enters into the realm of full-fledged philosophical speculation. Secondly, it examines empirical observation of specific cases, precisely situated regarding their spatial or historical collocation, or referring to a particular species of legislative policy. Focusing on legislation both as a process and as a result, the aim of the book is twofold: on the one hand, it demonstrates that, far from being a purely theoretical and exclusively academic intellectual enterprise, legisprudence can offer criteria for both assessing and improving the quality of real-world legislation. On the other hand, it shows how lawmaking is at least as interesting and legitimate a field of inquiry as adjudication and interpretation of laws for legal theorists and philosophers of law, and that they are already equipped with extremely valuable intellectual tools for fruitful legisprudential inquiry. The book is organized in two parts. The first part comprises legal-theoretical accounts on general aspects of legislation as a process and as a result. The second part presents contributions focusing on specific experiences of evaluations of legislative quality and contributions to the legislature's work on the part of the public, as well as on particular legislative policies, methodologies in lawmaking, and problems regarding legislation as an instrument.

Im unüberschaubaren Schrifttum zu Machiavelli fehlt es erstaunlicherweise an einer Darstellung seiner Gesetzgebungslehre, die nicht nur seinen berühmten ‚Fürsten‘, sondern vor allem sein Hauptwerk, die Discorsi, aber auch seine Geschichte von Florenz und die kleineren Schriften berücksichtigt. Das vorliegende Buch füllt diese Lücke und wendet die gewonnenen Einsichten auf die zeitgenössische Gesetzgebung an.

This book presents new research assumptions aiming at a significant expansion of a typical, common paradigm of law sciences. It focuses on the process of law-making, which is an important subject of interest in broadly understood legal sciences. Although many books have been written on this subject, new problems are still emerging. In many countries of the world, current political and legal theories are becoming less and less adequate to the description of reality. One of the causes is that too little empirical research is conducted in legal sciences on the links between the legal system and its socio-economic environment. This book is a result of discussions among researchers from different parts of the world. The multiplicity of points of view and the diversity of assumptions adopted by the authors, allows them to present a multi-faceted image of law-making processes.

Any contemporary state presents itself as committed to the “rule of law”, and this notion is perhaps the most powerful political ideal within the current global discourse on legal and political institutions. Despite being a contested concept, the rule of law is generally recognised as meaning that government is bound in all its actions by fixed and public rules, and that these rules respect certain formal requirements and are enforced by an independent judiciary. This book focuses on formal legality and the question of how to achieve good laws—a topic that was famously addressed by the 18th century enlightened thinkers, but also by prominent legal scholars of our time. Historically, the canon of “good legislation” demanded generality, publicity and accessibility, and comprehensibility of laws; non-retroactivity; consistency; the possibility of complying with legal obligations and prohibitions; stability; and congruency between enacted laws and their application. All these are valuable ideals that should not be abandoned in today's legal systems, particularly in view of the silent revolution that is transforming our legality-based “states of law” into jurisdictional states. Such ideals are still worth pursuing for those who believe in representative democracy, in the rule of law and in the dignity of legislation. The idea for the book stemmed from the author's parliamentary and governmental experience; he was responsible for the Government of Spain's legislative co-ordination from 1982 to 1993, which were years of intensive legislative production. The more than five hundred laws (and thousands of decrees) elaborated in this period profoundly changed all sectors of the legal order inherited from Franco's dictatorship, and laid the foundations of a new social and democratic system. For an academic, this was an exciting experience, which offered a unique opportunity to put the theory of legislation to the test. Reflecting and elaborating on this experience, the book not only increases scholarly awareness of how laws are made, but above all, improves the quality of legislation and as a result the rule of law.

This volume brings together an international group of legal scholars to discuss different approaches to lawmaking. As well as reflecting the diversity of legisprudence as a re-emerging academic field, it offers a broad overview of current developments and challenges in the theory of legislation, and aspires, moreover, to counterbalance some questionable ideas or misconceptions, widespread among jurists, on what making laws entails. The book is organized into three parts. The first comprises a sample of ‘ways and models of legislation', ranging from classic legislative ideals to contemporary forms of regulation. The essays in this part, variances of focus notwithstanding, revolve around the notions of legislative rationality, quality, effectiveness, and legitimacy, which may be regarded as the cornerstones of legisprudence. Interwoven with these notions is another core legisprudential concern: the justification of laws. We address it separately in the next part by exploring the connection between lawmaking, argumentation and constitutional democracy: under the heading ‘legislation in a culture of justification', a number of aspects of this connection are tackled that have not been sufficiently considered so far in legisprudential literature, such as the intricacies of legislative reasoning and balancing, or the justificatory problems posed by special-interest legislation. The under privileged status of legisprudence in legal studies and the need for socially attentive and citizen-oriented legislative research come to the fore in the third part of the book which turns to the relationships between ‘legisprudence, lawyers, and citizens'. All in all, the thirteen articles gathered here provide a stimulating insight into the theory of legislation, and can hopefully contribute to the reconciliation of the study of law and the study of its making.

In recent years, sunset clauses have mostly been associated with emergency legislation introduced in the wake of terrorist attacks. However, as this book demonstrates, they have a long history and a substantial constitutional impact on the separation of powers and the rule of law. In addition, the constitutional value of such clauses is examined from certain neglected normative aspects pertaining to concepts such as deliberative and consensus democracy, parliamentary sovereignty and constitutional dialogue.The work is an amalgam of three perspectives: the historical, the positive and the normative. All three are intertwined and each subsequent part builds upon the findings of the previous one. The historical perspective investigates the historical development of sunset clauses since the first Parliaments in England. The positive perspective examines the legal effect and the contemporary utility of sunset clauses. Finally, the normative perspective analyses their interaction with several models of separation of powers, and their influence on the dialogue between various institutions as it values their impact on the rule of law, formal and substantive.The detailed examination of this topical subject will be a valuable resource for academics, researchers and policy makers.

This work provides a rational framework for legislation. The unifying premise behind the essays is that, although legislation and regulation are the result of a political process, legislation and regulation can be the object of theoretical study. The volume focuses on problems that are common to most European legal systems and the approach involves applying to legislative problems the tools of legal theory - hence'legisprudence'. Whereas traditional legal theory deals predominantly with the application of law by the judge, legisprudence enlarges the field of study so as to include the creation of law by the legislator. The original essays published in this collection expose and develop a range of new insights into the relationship between legislative problems and legal theory in a way which will engage and interest legal scholars throughout the world.

This book establishes legisprudence, in contrast to jurisprudence, as a legal theory of rational law-making. It suggests that by rejecting the common wisdom about the nature of political law-making, legislation could be improved and streamlined. Using the methods, theoretical insights and tools of current legal theory and philosophy of law in a new way, the book suggests the creation of law by legislators rather than government. Raising new questions and problems of the validity of norms, the book opens a new perspective on legitimacy of norms, their meaning and the structure of the legal system. In distinguishing legitimacy and legitimation of law, the book ventures into the philosophical roots of legal theory and suggests the articulation of a new conception of sovereignty. In shifting the emphasis to the position of the legislator and legislation, this book opens a number of new insights into the relationship between legislative problems and legal theory. Its main claim is that legislation should be justified by the legislator.

Drafting Legislation sets out to prove Sir William Dale's doctrine that the rules for drafting good quality legislation are the same in common and civil systems of law. Legislative solutions can therefore serve the drafter, the judge and the practitioner of any jurisdiction. The book discusses the general issue of quality in legislation from the legislative process to the actual drafting interpretation and enforcement. It also analyzes topics related to quality in legislation such as clarity, precision and disambiguity, plain language and gender-neutral language and assesses whether Sir William's view of universality in the definition and elements of quality in legislation is right or not. The volume is of critical interest to students and scholars of European law and the philosophy and theory of law.

The essays in this volume set out to provide a rational framework for legislation. Whilst legislation and regulation is the result of a political process, this volume considers whether they can also be the object of theoretical study. It examines the problems that are common to most European legal systems by applying the tools of legal theory to legislative problems ('legisprudence'). While traditional legal theory deals predominantly with the question of the application of law by a judge, legisprudence enlarges the scope of study to include the creation of law by the legislator. The essays published in the volume develop a new range of insights into the relationship between legislative problems and legal theory in a way that will interest legal scholars throughout the world. Specifically the work will attract the attention of those involved with constitutional law, EU law, human rights law and legal theory.