Abstract

BULYGIN, Eugenio. El silencio del derecho. Anal. filos. [online]. 2002, vol.22, n.2, pp.103-114. ISSN 1851-9636.

According to Raz there are no legal gaps originating in the silence of law. Such gaps require that there should be no reason to perform an action and no conclusive permission to omit that action. Raz claims that such a situation leads to a contradiction and hence is impossible. This means that aIl legal systems are necessarily complete. In this paper I argue that (1) the Razian argument against gaps begs the question, (2) the concept of conclusive pennission is inadequate for characterizing completeness and gaps and must be replaced by a stronger notion, and (3) legal gaps due to the absence of legal regulations are possible and hence the problem of completeness of legal systems is an empirical question that cannot be sol ved by logical means alone.

Keywords : Normative system; Completeness; Legal graps; Pennissions; Clousure rule.

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