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5 Liverpool L. Rev. 5 (1983)

handle is hein.journals/lvplr5 and id is 1 raw text is: On the Status of the Lex Posterior Derogating Rule ON THE STATUS OF THE LEX POSTERIOR DEROGATING RULE* Stanley L. Paulson** Introduction It is a commonplace that the rule lex posterior derogat legi priori serves as a means of resolving conflicts between legal norms issued at different times. The norm issued earlier yields to the norm issued later. Other derogating rules - for example, the rule lex superior derogat legi inferiori - speak to other types of conflicts between legal norms. Beyond this elementary point, however, little is clear on the status of derogating rules in the legal system. A number of theorists have argued that derogating rules are rules of logic or are at any rate akin to rules of logic.1 On this view, derogating rules are a priori or noncontingent in nature.2 Others have argued that derogating rules are rules of the positive law, enacted by the legislature or, more commonly, the result of evolution through customary practice.3 Following this view, derogating rules are a posteriori or contingent. What sorts of arguments support these positions? And what is at stake? In an effort to throw light on these questions, I examine Hans Kelsen's arguments on the status of the lexposterior rule. One might well think that the selection of Kelsen as the focal point of such an inquiry is one-sided, excessively positivistic. But this is not so. Kelsen, over the sixty-year period in which he wrote, held no fewer than three different views on the status of the lexposterior rule, only one of which is obviously positivistic. These three views turn up in the course of four different * This paper reflects research that I undertook at the Free University of Berlin as a Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Bonn-Bad Godesberg), and I remain grateful to the Foundation for its support. 1 should like to thank Professor B. S. Jackson for his kind hospitality during my visit to Liverpool in June of 1982 and for welcome encouragement in writing the present paper. Also, I am grateful to Dr. J. W. Harris, Keble College, Oxford, for many questions at the Kelsen Conference in Edinburgh in April of 1981, questions that led me to think about how and why Kelsen changed his mind on the lex posterior rule. ** Associate Professor of Law and Associate Professor of Philosophy, Washington University, St. Louis. 1 See, e.g., Hans Kelsen, Reichsgesetz und Landesgesetz nach bsterreichischer Verfassung, 32 Archiv des offentlichen Rechts (1914), 202-245, 390-438, at 206-215; Julius Modr, Das logische fin Recht, 2 Internationale Zeitschrift fur Theorie des Rechts (1927-28), 157-203, at 165, cited in Hans Kelsen, Atlgemeine Theorie derNormen, ed. K. Ringhofer & R. Walter, Vienna, Manz, 1979, at 227, 266; Eduart B6tticher, Kritische Beitrdge zur Lehre von der materiellen Rechtskraft im Zivilprozess, Berlin, Otto Liebmann, 1930 (reprinted: Aalen, Scientia, 1970), at 54-55. 2 Following the standard Kantian reading, to say that something is a priori or noncontingent is to say that it is known apart from experience. (I use noncontingent and contingent in the paper rather than the more familiar a priori and a posteriorito avoid confusion between a posteriori and lex posterior) 3 See, above all, Adolf Merkl, Die Rechtseinheit des dsterreichischen Staates, 37 Archiv des offentlichen Rechts (1918), 56-121, at 75-88, reprinted in Die Wiener Rechtstheoretische Schule, ed. H. Klecatsky, R. Marcic & H. Schambeck, Vienna, Europa Verlag, 1968, vol. 1, 1115-1165, at 1130-1139; Adolf Merkl, Die Lehre von der Rechtskraft, Leipzig & Vienna, Franz Deuticke, 1923, at 228-244; Adolf Merkl, A llgemeine erwaltungsrecht, Vienna & Berlin, Springer-Verlag, 1927 (reprinted: Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1969), at 209-211. See also Robert Walter, DerAufbau der Rechtsordnung, Vienna, Manz, 2d ed. 1974, at 53-68. 5

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