{"title":"Radbruch’s Formula Revisited: The Lex Injusta Non Est Lex Maxim in Constitutional Democracies","authors":"Seow Hon Tan","doi":"10.1017/cjlj.2021.12","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"According to German legal philosopher Gustav Radbruch, laws that are substantively unjust to an intolerable degree should not be regarded as legally valid, even if they were promulgated according to stipulated procedure. Radbruch’s Formula (as his position has been termed) contradicts the central tenet of legal positivism, according to which the existence of laws does not necessarily depend on their merit.1 While some legal positivists suppose that legal invalidity based on the content of particular laws is a central tenet of natural law theory,2 natural law theorists such as John Finnis opine that the lex injusta non est lex3 maxim has been no more than a subordinate theorem of classical natural law theory.4 In Finnis’s view, unjust laws give rise to legal obligation “in a legal sense.”5","PeriodicalId":43817,"journal":{"name":"Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence","volume":"34 1","pages":"461 - 491"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4000,"publicationDate":"2020-11-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/cjlj.2021.12","citationCount":"4","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1017/cjlj.2021.12","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"LAW","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 4
Abstract
According to German legal philosopher Gustav Radbruch, laws that are substantively unjust to an intolerable degree should not be regarded as legally valid, even if they were promulgated according to stipulated procedure. Radbruch’s Formula (as his position has been termed) contradicts the central tenet of legal positivism, according to which the existence of laws does not necessarily depend on their merit.1 While some legal positivists suppose that legal invalidity based on the content of particular laws is a central tenet of natural law theory,2 natural law theorists such as John Finnis opine that the lex injusta non est lex3 maxim has been no more than a subordinate theorem of classical natural law theory.4 In Finnis’s view, unjust laws give rise to legal obligation “in a legal sense.”5
期刊介绍：
The Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence serves as a forum for special and general jurisprudence and legal philosophy. It publishes articles that address the nature of law, that engage in philosophical analysis or criticism of legal doctrine, that examine the form and nature of legal or judicial reasoning, that investigate issues concerning the ethical aspects of legal practice, and that study (from a philosophical perspective) concrete legal issues facing contemporary society. The journal does not use case notes, nor does it publish articles focussing on issues particular to the laws of a single nation. The Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence is published on behalf of the Faculty of Law, Western University.
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