El ensayo que presento intenta establecer la unidad conceptual entre las llamadas normas regulatorias y las normas de competencia. Para ello se hace una construcción conceptual de la norma jurídica y del orden jurídico, cuando existe una pluralidad de normas. Con base en ello se ofrece un esquema del orden jurídico que comprende tanto a las normas regulatorias como a las de competencia, estableciendo la unidad entre ambas clases de normas, considerando que las normas regulatorias son una parte de las (...) normas de competencia, en tanto determinan el contenido de las normas inferiores creadas en el ejercicio de facultades jurídicas. The essay here presented tries to establish the conceptual unity between regulatory and empowerment norms. To that effect the path taken must be to carry out a conceptual construction of the legal norm and the legal order, when there exists a plurality of norms. Thereafter, one offers an outline of the legal order that encloses both regulatory and empowerment norms, thus establishing the unity between the latter two. Furthermore, one considers that regulatory norms are a subset of empowerment norms, so far as they determine the content of inferior norms created in the exercise of legal faculties. (shrink)

Abstract.The paper offers a critical survey of two main sorts of problems hindering the possibility of conceiving deontic logic as a suitable account of the logical behaviour of (sentences expressing) legal norms. The notion of “legal norm” is viewed as the main source of the first sort of problems: (a) the typological variety of legal norms requires an account both of the differing logical behaviour of (sentences expressing) differing legal norms, and of the relations which might hold amon them; (b) (...) the ontologic, semantic, and epistemic features of legal norms shed doubt on the very attempt to figure out a logical analysis of (sentences expressing) legal norms. The notion of “systemic legal validity” is viewed as the main source of the second sort of problems: Deontic logic does not provide suitable logical tools to account for legal phenomena like enactment, derogation, and conflicts between legal norms which rely on systemic legal validity. (shrink)

The author deals with the legal theoretical approach that has been labelled “legal institutionalism.” An old and a new version of this approach are singled out: The old one is identified with the theory defended by the Italian public lawyer Santi Romano in the first half of this century; the second one is seen in the recent work by Ota Weinberger and Neil MacCormick. After a short presentation of Romano's work, his ideas and the development proposed by MacCormick and Weinberger (...) are compared. Similarities and differences between the two versions of institutional theory are worked out. A coda hints at an ambiguity in the definition of institution proposed by the “new” institutionalism. (shrink)