Between Facts and Norms - Contributions to a ... - Blogs Unpad

9Paradigms of LawSince the great codifications of the eighteenth century, if notbefore, the established law in such countries as France and Germanyhas assumed tangible form primarily in texts: the propositionsin the statute books tell us which norms are valid. Thesepropositions provide the basis o£ adjudication, and they providethe perspective from which legal doctrine strives to interpret law.Legal theory and legal history cultivate a more objectivating approachin their understanding oflegal texts and rule systems, albeit. in different directions. As we have seen, by generalizing andabstracting from the adjudication of cases, legal theory gainsdistance without giving up the participant perspective as such. Bycontrast, the objectivating gaze of the historian focuses on thesocial contexts in which the law, as a system of action, is embedded-andfrom which the implicit background assumptions ofacljudication and contemporary legal doctrine are nourished.Adopting this observer perspective discloses those connectionsthat, latent for the participants themselves, functionally link a legalsystem with its social environment-and also link it through theimage legal scholars have of their society. It then becomes clear thatexperts interpret individual propositions not only in the context ofthe legal corpus as a whole but also within the horizon of a currentlydominant preunderstanding of contemporary society. To thisextent, the interpretation of law is also an answer to the perceivedchallenges of the present social situation.In some prominent places, the text of the law itself reveals theseimplicit diagnoses of the times, for example, in the "bill of rights"