4 Interpretation and modi fi cation
4.2.2 Are the methods of interpretation irrelevant?
The ‘frame theorem’ is the core of the Vienna School’s theory of interpretation, but it is not the centre of the controversy surrounding that theory. It is rather the
100 ‘Das anzuwendende Recht bildet in allen diesen Fọllen nur einen Rahmen, innerhalb dessen mehrere Mửglichkeiten der Anwendung gegeben sind, wobei jeder Akt rechtmọòig ist, der sich innerhalb dieses Rahmens họlt, den Rahmen in irgendeinem mửglichen Sinn ausfỹllt. . . . Versteht man unter “Interpretation” die erkenntnismọòige Feststellung des Sinnes des zu interpretierenden Objektes, so kann das Ergebnis einer Rechtsinterpretation nur die Feststellung eines Rahmens sein, den das zu interpretierende Recht darstellt, und damit die Erkenntnis mehrerer Mửglichkeiten, die innerhalb dieses Rahmens gegeben sind.’ Kelsen (1960) supra note 3 at 348–349 (Ch 45 d).
101 Larenz (1991) supra note 3 at 314.
102 Kelsen (1934b) supra note 95 at 1368–1369. Such a standard can be found in: Franz Bydlinski, Gesetzeslücke, § 7 ABGB und die ‘Reine Rechtslehre’, in: Christoph Faistenberger, Heinrich Mayrhofer (eds), Privatrechtliche Beitrọge. Gedenkschrift Franz Gschnitzer (1969) 101–116 at 103, 106; Günther Winkler, Rechtstheorie und Erkenntnislehre (1990) 222.
103 Heinz Mayer, Die Interpretationstheorie der Reinen Rechtslehre, in: Robert Walter (ed.), Schwerpunkte der Reinen Rechtslehre (1992) 61–70 at 62.
104 Winkler (1990) supra note 102 at 213.
105 Kelsen (1950) supra note 52 at xvi.
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theory’s presuppositions that are problematised and are the cause for criticism of Kelsen’s theory of interpretation. Criticism of the Kelsenian theory of interpret- ation is more often than not directed against the Pure Theory of Law as a whole.106 The curious fact that Kelsen seems to have been blasé about the methods of interpretation107 will be our starting point for our analysis of the origins of the frame theorem and how it is connected to the notion of ‘purity’ of positive law.
Kelsen seems less than enthusiastic about discussing the traditional methods of interpretation (such as textual, contextual, subjective or teleological interpret- ation). This is strange, as even Kelsen’s close collaborator Adolf Merkl is emphatic about the logical priority of what he calls the ‘logico-grammatical method’.108 Kelsen writes:
To ignore the text and to care for the presumed will of the legislator, or to follow the text and ignore the . . . will of the legislator has . . . equal value.109
Yet is he really just blasé about the methods of interpretation, and why would he be? Again (cf. Section 4.1.1) the real issue is not the method, but the goal or object of interpretation, that is, the ascertainment of the sense of a norm.110 However, other scholars in the same tradition have adopted different positions. Merkl adopts a clearly objectivist viewpoint. For him, the logico-grammatical method is merely the taking-into-consideration of the means by which the law expresses itself, of language and thought. Robert Walter and Heinz Mayer take the opposite view. Kelsen had defined positive norms as the ‘sense [or meaning] of an act of will’111 and consequently, interpretation as hermeneutic tool must be directed at finding the content of that act of will – the will of the legislator.112 Thus, they are part of the subjectivist camp. Yet Kelsen himself did not decide. The reason for Kelsen’s noncommittal stance may have been that there are good grounds for rejecting either opinion. Also, the Pure Theory could be argued never to have managed to solve a key problem of its normativist construct (Section 4.2.3) and so Kelsen could not commit to one camp or another before he had solved the problem, which he did not.
Merkl’s objectivist view presupposes that law texts follow the rules of grammar and logic. This is a common presumption among lawyers: law and its textual manifestations are assumed to be logically and grammatically correct, because
106 Kurt Ringhofer, Interpretation und Reine Rechtslehre, in: Adolf Julius Merkl et al. (eds), Festschrift für Hans Kelsen zum 90. Geburtstag (1971) 198–210 at 206–207.
107 Kelsen (1960) supra note 3 at 350 (Ch 45 e); contra: Bydlinski (1969) supra note 102 at 108.
108 ‘grammatisch-logische Interpretation’; Merkl (1916) supra note 41 at 1073.
109 ‘Sich unter Vernachlọssigung des Wortlauts an den mutmaòlichen Willen des Gesetzgebers zu halten oder den Wortlaut streng zu beobachten und sich dabei um den . . . Willen des Gesetzgebers nicht [zu] kümmern, ist . . . durchaus gleichwertig.’ Kelsen (1934b) supra note 95 at 1367.
110 ‘Feststellung des Sinns der . . . Norm’; Kelsen (1934b) supra note 95 at 1366.
111 ‘Sinn eines Willensaktes’; Kelsen (1979) supra note 47 at 2 (Ch 1 III).
112 Mayer (1992) supra note 103 at 68; Walter (1983) supra note 96 at 192.
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‘principles of rational organization are at the heart of the normative concept’.113 Michael Thaler differentiates between a legal order defined by membership of norms to the order (‘positive legal order 1’) and one that combines membership with the criterion that the norms contained therein are meaningful (‘positive legal order 2’). He argues that Kelsen subscribed to positive legal order 2 until 1960, whereas in his late works he did away with the role of logic in law, most forcefully demonstrated in Allgemeine Theorie der Normen (1979). Thaler himself espouses legal order 2,114 but the position that Kelsen never argued for a ‘meaningful’ legal order in Thaler’s sense seems closer to the spirit of the Pure Theory of Law.
Kelsen was sceptical of the role of logic in law even before 1960, and for good reasons.115 In 1928, Kelsen published a paper delimiting positivism from natural law. There, he argues that to add the criterion of a sensibleness, logical consistency or meaningfulness to the definition of ‘legal order’ means to add something to positive law and hence to transcend the Pure Theory’s positivism. ‘The postulate of a meaningful, i.e. logically consistent, order means that legal science crosses the boundary of pure positivism. The abandonment of this postulate would mean its dissolution.’116 In that paper, Kelsen seeks to portray law as ‘a meaningful whole’, yet law, he argues, does not necessarily need to be taken at its word.117 He does not contradict Thaler’s assumption, but Kelsen is less enthusiastic about logic in law than Thaler. In later writings, Kelsen explicitly allows for senseless positive regulation:
The statute here simply makes no sense. This cannot be excluded, because laws are made by humans. A norm can have non-sensical content. In that case no interpretation will be able to make sense of its terms. That is, because interpretation cannot extract something from a norm which it did not have in the first place.118
Yet the question remains why we should think that the textual formulation of a norm has to make sense. The act of will whose meaning is the norm is willed by
113 Bos (1980) supra note 3 at 18.
114 Michael Thaler, Mehrdeutigkeit und juristische Auslegung (1982) 25–44.
115 Contra: Winkler (1990) supra note 102 at 222.
116 ‘Mit dem Postulat einer sinnvollen, d.i. widerspruchslosen Ordnung überschreitet die Rechtswis- senschaft bereits die Grenze des reinen Positivismus. Der Verzicht auf dieses Postulat wọre aber zugleich ihre Selbstauflửsung.’ Hans Kelsen, Die philosophischen Grundlagen der Naturrechtslehre und des Rechtspositivismus (1928), reprinted in: Hans Klecatsky, René Marcic, Herbert Schambeck (eds), Die Wiener rechtstheoretische Schule. Ausgewọhlte Schriften von Hans Kelsen, Adolf Julius Merkl, Alfred Verdross (1968) 281–350 at 339.
117 ‘. . . insbesondere nicht, daò es in dem Sinne als Recht angenommen werden mỹsse, den es sich selbst beilegt.’ Kelsen (1928) supra note 116 at 298 (para 11).
118 ‘Das Gesetz bestimmt hier eben etwas Unsinniges. Das ist, da Gesetze Menschenwerk sind, nicht ausgeschlossen. Eine Norm kann auch einen sinnlosen Inhalt haben. Dann ist aber keine Interpretation imstande, ihr einen Sinn abzugewinnen. Denn durch Interpretation kann aus einer Norm nicht herausgeholt werden, was nicht schon vorher in ihr enthalten war.’ Kelsen (1934b) supra note 95 at 1371–1372 (para 10) (emphasis added).
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humans; the textual formulation of a norm is created by humans and statutes are written by humans. Humans can make mistakes in grammar, in meaning and in logic.119 As a human product, norms are meaningful and non-contradictory only incidentally and not necessarily. To presume correctness may be a beneficial lie, a pragmatic fiction to reduce uncertainty in daily life. While nobody will object to this white lie in the daily administration of a legal order, the legal theorist must be held to a different standard:
The practitioner is and ought to be a jurist and a human, not just as the same person, but also within the same act! One might even forgive him for being a bit unjuristic in favour of the ethical postulate of being human. The matter is different for the legal theorist, however . . . To curtail his cognition of the law on account of humanitarian objectives is an offence against the postulates of pure cognition.120
The subjectivist reading of Kelsen’s theory of interpretation is faced with a different objection. Positive norms are the sense of an act of will (Sinn eines Willensaktes); the subjectivist faction sees the ascertainment of that will (of the objective sense of certain human acts of will) as the goal of interpretation.121 Apart from the obvious question of what to do when a divergence of meanings occurs between the sense of the norm resulting from the text and that resulting from the will of the law-making authority,122 it may be asked whether the notion of ‘sense of an act of will’ does not denote the wrong idea within the confines of the Pure Theory.
The factual occurrence of an act of will – an act of will with a certain sense or meaning, namely that of an Ought – is the ‘positivity factor’, rather than the
‘normativity factor’ of a positive norm. The ‘claim to be observed’ makes an idea a norm (normativity factor), whereas the actual occurrence of an act of will makes a norm a positive norm (positivity factor). If that is so, and admittedly this to some extent means contradicting Kelsen, the act of will is not capable of enlightening us as to the content of a norm.
Second, Kelsen himself distinguished sharply in Allgemeine Theorie der Normen between the norm as the sense of an act of will, on the one hand, and the sense of a norm, on the other hand:
The sense of an act of will directed at the behaviour of another is the meaning of the expression of my act of will. . . . He who gives an order means to express something. . . . In giving his order, he means that the other person ought to behave in a certain way.
119 Thaler (1982) supra note 114 at 156.
120 ‘Der Rechtspraktiker ist und sei Jurist und Mensch nicht bloò in einer Person, sondern auch in derselben Handlung! Sogar etwas unjuristisch zu werden zugunsten des ethischen Postulates, ganzer Mensch zu sein, wird man ihm verzeihen dürfen. Beim Rechtstheoretiker trifft aber eine solche Sachlage nicht zu . . . Aus irgendwelchen Menschlichkeitsrücksichten etwa seine Rechtserkenntnisse beschneiden, das ist Vergehen gegen die Postulate der reinen Erkenntnis.’
Merkl (1916) supra note 41 at 1066.
121 Mayer (1992) supra note 103 at 68.
122 Bydlinski (1969) supra note 102 at 108.
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That is the sense of his act of will. . . . The person giving the order expects that the recipient understands the order, i.e. that he understands the sense of the statement of the person giving the order as an order, that he knows: 1. that he ought to behave in a certain way; and 2. how he ought to behave, what he should do or omit to do. The former is the sense, the latter is the content of the act of will constituting the order.123
Thus the meaning of a norm (the content of a norm) is different from the sense of an act of will, which is a necessary condition for the creation of a positive norm.124 The discovery of the content of a norm is not dependent upon the content of the will. The act of will is form, not content. The act of will is denaturised and formalised.125 The entities that create norms are of secondary importance. This is analogous to the Kelsenian critique of traditional notions of sovereignty.126 Inter- national law is sovereign, not states. Even when states are authorised to create law, they are authorised by international law. So it is with this problem: the norm is to be cognised, not the will of states.
Another objection (mentioned above on occasion of the discussion of the dichotomy of terms and intent, Section 4.1.1) is that the act of will is not physical and as such is not immediately cognisable.127 This is obvious in any unwritten law such as customary international law. If the Kelsenian framework is consistently applied to international law, the subjective element is also a mental act and also constitutes the act of will (Section 3.2). Yet in international treaty law, that act is expressed in the text. It can be argued that the text is the only authentic manifest- ation of the act of will and that therefore the subjective method collapses into the objective method. It can, however, also be argued that the terms of the treaty merely express the ‘real’ law and that all linguistic expressions are a mere faỗade.
On this view, sense and meaning of legal norms are implied rather than expressed
123 ‘Der Sinn meines auf das Verhalten eines anderen gerichteten Willensaktes ist das, was ich mit dem Ausdruck meines Willensaktes meine. . . . Wer einen Befehl gibt, meint etwas. . . . Er meint mit seinem Befehl, daò sich der andere in bestimmter Weise verhalten soll. Das ist der Sinn seines Willensaktes. . . . Der Befehlsgeber erwartet, daò der Befehlsadressat den Befehl versteht, d.h., daò er den Sinn der Äuòerung des Befehlsgebers als Befehl versteht, das heiòt, daò er weiò: 1. daò er sich in bestimmter Weise verhalten soll; und 2. wie er sich verhalten soll, was er tun soll oder unterlassen soll. Das eine ist der Sinn, das andere der Inhalt des einen Befehl darstellenden Willensaktes.’ Kelsen (1979) supra note 47 at 25–26 (Ch 9 II).
124 Kelsen (1979) supra note 47 at 221 (N 1); Kasimierz Opałek, ĩberlegungen zu Hans Kelsens
‘Allgemeine Theorie der Normen’ (1980) 22.
125 Winkler (1990) supra note 102 at 209; in international legal scholarship: Wolfram Karl, Vertrag und spọtere Praxis im Vửlkerrecht (1983) 271.
126 Kelsen (1920) supra note 51 at 9–10, 16; Alfred Verdross, Die Einheit des rechtlichen Weltbildes auf Grundlage der Vửlkerrechtsverfassung (1923) 35: ‘Thus, “sovereignty” is the specific com- petences allocated to “states” by international law. “Statal sovereignty” and “immediate subject of international law” are one and the same thing.’ ‘Denn “Souverọnitọt” ist gerade die besondere Kompetenz, die die “Staaten” auf Grund des Vửlkerrechts besitzen. “Staatliche Souverọnitọt” und
“unmittelbare Vửlkerrechtsunterworfenheit” bedeuten daher ein und dasselbe.’
127 Walter (1983) supra note 96 at 192.
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in legal texts.128 Transcending this argumentative circle may be possible by argu- ing that it is irrelevant which methods (or approaches) of interpretation are used, as long as they are expedient in cognising the norm.