Abstract
The paper aims at distinguishing between legal science, properly so called, i.e., the neutral description of the law in force, and so-called legal dogmatics, i.e., the actual practice of academic lawyers. A preliminary distinction is made among (different forms of) interpretation and what the author labels “juristic construction”. The author maintains that legal dogmatics does not simply describe, but mould and enrich the law by ascribing meaning to legal texts (adjudicative interpretation) and, most of all, by developing a great deal of unexpressed rules, i.e. rules that no normative authority ever formulated (juristic construction), in such a way that the law in force amounts to a melange of expressed and unexpressed rules—both being the result of juristic practice, adjudicative interpretation and juristic construction respectively. As a consequence, legal dogmatics is not the same as legal science—rather, legal dogmatics is part of the object of legal science.
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