Hierarchisation of Values in Acts of Law Application

Abstract

When creating a legal system, a rational lawmaker formulates not only legal norms, but also binding legal values. The lawmaker does so either directly (e.g. through the principles of law) or indirectly (when the interpreter of a legal text assigns a positive value to a prescribed action and a negative value to a prohibited action). The specificity of the values, in particular their collision nature, means that if the lawmaker itself does not resolve the expected conflict, the court must do so. The lawmaker should do this in accordance with the pattern of applying values; a pattern that can be reconstructed analogously to the pattern of applying legal norms.

Keywords

• legal norms
• binding legal values
• rational lawmaker
• specificity of the values
• pattern of applying values