Abstract

VITA, Leticia. The Notion of Legal Principles in Hermann Heller's Theory of Law. Isonomía [online]. 2015, n.43, pp.49-75. ISSN 1405-0218.

While the debate on legal principles reaches its breaking point with the work of Ronald Dworkin and Robert Alexy, it recognizes previous developments and finds one of its deepest formulations in reaction to Inter-War positivist legal thought. In this work we focus on the contributions of social-democratic jurist Hermann Heller to legal theory which -in contrast to those he made to State theory- remain forgotten. We reconstruct his theory of law to show that his ideas about the structure of legal systems and about the foundations of legal principles explain very well the relationship between law and power in modern constitutional States and the role of judges in a democracy, while simultaneously being a precursor to some of those Robert Alexy would later develop.

Keywords : legal principles; Hermann Heller; Weimar; judicial interpretation.

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