LEGAL PRINCIPLES AS TELEOLOGICAL LEGAL ATTITUDES IN THE LEGAL ORDER OF A STATE OF LAW

Abstract

This article presents the difference between legal norms and legal principles. The author’s viewpoint is based on the differentiation between regulatory, systemic and teleological legal attitudes in the legal order of a state of law (Rechtsstaat). The conceptual framework of legal principles entails constituent laws and different areas of a legal order. Unlike legal norms (as subject-specific regulating legal attitudes) and legal standards (as the most general legal attitudes), legal principles are radiating teleological legal attitudes. Moreover, being the result of systemic and teleological concretisation of written law, legal principles as basic teleological legal attitudes are shaped as bundles of teleological legal attitudes and legal conceptions. In the order of a legal state, legal principles have a circular flow in the operation of the legal order, which is determined by the complementary roles of the institutional order of public authority, the institutional order of state authority, and the institutional order of a territorial community. It necessarily brings to light the difference between the fundamental legal principles of a legal order and the legal principles governing different areas of a legal order. This article analyzes the aspects of systemic and teleological understanding of legal principles, particularly considering the distinctive nature of legal principles as sources of law. Legal principles are also viewed as canons directly developed in jurisprudence, within the framework of the “internal legal system” based on legal forms.