Van Der Vyver Research Articles

THE SEPARATION OF POWERS AND THE NON-DELEGATION DOCTRINE In re Constitutionality of the Mpumalanga Petitions Bills, 2000 2000 1 SA 447 (CC); 2001 11 BCLR 1126 (CC)

The modern concept of separation of powers was first introduced by Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de la Bréde et de Montesquieu (1689-1755), in his well-known work L’Esprit des Loix (1748). Since then this concept has developed into a doctrine made up of four basic principles, one of which is the principle of separation of functions (the other three being: the principle of trias politica; the principle of separation of personnel; and the principle of checks and balances – see Van der Vyver “Separation of Powers” 1995 SAPL 177).The principle of separation of functions – which provides that each branch of state may only exercise those powers which have been entrusted to it – gives rise to many complex issues. One of these is the extent to which the legislative branch may validly delegate lawmaking powers to another body or person. This issue has been considered by the Constitutional Court on a number of occasions, most recently in the case In re Constitutionality of the Mpumalanga Petitions Bill, 2000 (2002 1 SA 447 (CC); 2001 11 BCLR 1126 (CC)).This judgment is particularly interesting because it deals not only with the type of legislative power which may be validly delegated to another body or person – which was the focus in the Constitutional Court’s previous judgments on the issue – but also with the sorts of bodies or persons to whom legislative power may be validly delegated.Besides dealing with the sorts of bodies or persons to whom legislative power may validly be delegated, the judgment also clarifies a number of issues relating to the referral of a bill to the Constitutional Court by the president (or a provincial premier) in terms of section 79 (or s 121) of the Constitution.

DILEMMAS OF SCIENCE AND THE CRIMINAL LAW: A SOUTH AFRICAN PERSPECTIVE

In light of the 85.9% conviction rate reported by the National Prosecuting Authority for the year 2007/2008, one would expect crime in South Africa to be comparatively under control. However, with only 11% of all reported cases of murder resulting in convictions in this country, it becomes clear that crime is still a very real threat to the Constitutional freedom of its citizens. This article explores the problems encountered in the harvesting, processing and presentation of expert scientific evidence in our criminal courts. The court ruling in S v Van der Vyver 2008 JOL 21332 C is analysed and presents an interesting example of the erroneous use of science in the criminal justice system. A comparative study is undertaken to illustrate further the extent of the problems inherent in the use of science within the criminal justice system and probe possible solutions. The use of scientific evidence in the jurisdictions of England/Wales and the United States of America are used as a focus for the comparative studies.

Ecosystem restoration is risky … but we can change that

The forthcoming UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration brings the challenge of massively increasing restoration efforts to halt and reverse environmental degradation. This challenge must move beyond a focus on the size and number of projects to a focus on how those projects are designed and implemented. Approaches based on restoring the fundamental ecological processes that lead to self-sustaining ecosystems are essential.

Investigation of different sodium hypochlorite volumes, concentrations and times of irrigation in endodontic therapy: a systematic review

Investigation of different sodium hypochlorite volumes, concentrations and times of irrigation in endodontic therapy: a systematic review

Emotional Intelligence, Educational Improvement, and Professional Development Pathways: The Case of Abu Dhabi School Leaders

Emotional Intelligence, Educational Improvement, and Professional Development Pathways: The Case of Abu Dhabi School Leaders

Editorial

This edition, one of the most voluminous to date, opens with an oratio by IT Cohen Professor of International Law and Human Rights, Emory University School of Law, Johan van der Vyver. The paper was delivered in the HL Swanepoel series of lectures on 26 May in Potchefstroom. In a well documented paper covering historical perspectives on the right to self-determination, the definition thereof and limitations thereupon, Van der Vyver concludes that the "[d]rafters of the South African Constitution rejected segregation of rival ethnic, religious and linguistic communities, as well as the promotion of cultural, religious or linguistic homogeneity within our nation, as a means of counteracting group-related tensions in the country's social construct. . . . The new constitutional dispensation accordingly seeks to promote pride in one's group identities." He also points out that "[p]luralism, tolerance and broadmindedness have been singled out by the European Court of Human Rights as indispensable components of a democratic society." A link to video material of the lecture is also included.
 

The Right to Self-Determination of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities in South Africa

The South African nation comprises perhaps the most diverse plural composition in the entire world and is furthermore known for the polarization of factions of the population.[1] This raises the question how to bring about and to maintain the peaceful co-existence of the cultural, religious and linguistic varieties within its fold. Several models to cope with group-related tensions within a political community have been put to the test in different countries of our troublesome times. Nepal is a most recent case in point.* JD van der Vyver. BComm, LLB, Honns BA (PU for CHE) LLD (Pret). IT Cohen Professor of International Law and Human Rights, Emory University School of Law; Extraordinary Professor in the Department of Private Law, University of Pretoria (JVAND02@emory.edu).[1] See S v Makwanyane 1995 3 SA 391 (CC) para 308 (Mokgoro J referring to South Africans having "a history of deep division characterised by strife and conflict"); Du Toit v Minister for Safety and Security 2009 6 SA 128 (CC) para 17 (Lange CJ stating: "The South African nation was for decades a deeply divided society characterised by gross violations of fundamental human rights").

Is law Science?

The question this contribution sets out to address is whether or not law can be regarded as a science. This notion is readily accepted by many, yet it is submitted that a proper theoretical justification for such an assumption is usually missing. The traditional primary sources of law, South African case law and legislation, distinguish between legal practice and legal science, but the basis of the distinction is not clear. However, an entire body of literature in the philosophy of science has developed around the question of when a discipline will amount to science. Various demarcation criteria proposed in the philosophy of science are considered. These include that science uses the scientific method, is susceptible to falsification, is puzzle-solving within a paradigm or renders beneficial results. None of these criteria offers a satisfactory solution to the problem. The proposition by a group of philosophers including Herman Dooyeweerd, Marinus Stafleu and DFM Strauss, that the answer to the demarcation question is to be found in modal abstraction, is then considered. Modal abstraction amounts to a consideration of reality (persons, things, theories and rules) from one or more defined point(s) of entry. It is an artificial and learnt manner of thinking as it approaches reality from the perspective of one of the modalities of being. For example, juridical abstraction would mean that a cow is considered as the object of someone's proprietary rights. An abstract idea of the cow's characteristics, from a juridical point of view, is formed and the rules of property law are applied. A number of South African legal philosophers, amongst others Van Zyl, Van der Vyver and LM du Plessis, have followed this approach. The South African legislature has also attempted to define the terms "science" and "research", mainly for funding purposes. These definitions are considered and the conclusion is that they do not provide the clear-cut answers one would expect. It will be argued that the nature of activities will determine whether an endeavour is scientific or not. The conclusion is that an alignment of the demarcation criterion developed by Strauss and others and the statutory definitions can provide a workable demarcation criterion. This "test" is then applied to the activities of law students, academics, practitioners and judicial officers to determine when they will be practising "science".

Commentary: Extracellular peptidase hunting for improvement of protein production in plant cells and roots.

Commentary: Extracellular peptidase hunting for improvement of protein production in plant cells and roots.

Is Law science?

The question this contribution sets out to address is whether or not law can be regarded as a This notion is readily accepted by many, yet it is submitted that a proper theoretical justification for such an assumption is usually missing. The traditional primary sources of law, South African case law and legislation, distinguish between legal practice and legal science, but the basis of the distinction is not clear. However, an entire body of literature in the philosophy of has developed around the question of when a discipline will amount to Various demarcation criteria proposed in the philosophy of are considered. These include that uses the scientific method, is susceptible to falsification, is puzzle-solving within a paradigm or renders beneficial results. None of these criteria offers a satisfactory solution to the problem. The proposition by a group of philosophers including Herman Dooyeweerd, Marinus Stafleu and DFM Strauss, that the answer to the demarcation question is to be found in modal abstraction, is then considered. Modal abstraction amounts to a consideration of reality (persons, things, theories and rules) from one or more defined point(s) of entry. It is an artificial and learnt manner of thinking as it approaches reality from the perspective of one of the modalities of being. For example, juridical abstraction would mean that a cow is considered as the object of someone's proprietary rights. An abstract idea of the cow's characteristics, from a juridical point of view, is formed and the rules of property law are applied. A number of South African legal philosophers, amongst others Van Zyl, Van der Vyver and LM du Plessis, have followed this approach. The South African legislature has also attempted to define the terms science and research, mainly for funding purposes. These definitions are considered and the conclusion is that they do not provide the clear-cut answers one would expect. It will be argued that the nature of activities will determine whether an endeavour is scientific or not. The conclusion is that an alignment of the demarcation criterion developed by Strauss and others and the statutory definitions can provide a workable demarcation criterion. This test is then applied to the activities of law students, academics, practitioners and judicial officers to determine when they will be practising science.

The Right to Self-Determination of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities in South Africa

This edition, one of the most voluminous to date, opens with an oratio by IT Cohen Professor of International Law and Human Rights, Emory University School of Law, Johan van der Vyver. The paper was delivered in the HL Swanepoel series of lectures on 26 May in Potchefstroom. In a well documented paper covering historical perspectives on the right to self-determination, the definition thereof and limitations thereupon, Van der Vyver concludes that the 'drafters of the South African Constitution rejected segregation of rival ethnic, religious and linguistic communities, as well as the promotion of cultural, religious or linguistic homogeneity within our nation, as a means of counteracting group-related tensions in the country's social construct. . . . The new constitutional dispensation accordingly seeks to promote pride in one's group identities.' He also points out that 'pluralism, tolerance and broadmindedness have been singled out by the European Court of Human Rights as indispensable components of a democratic society.' A link to video material of the lecture is also included.

Understanding the mathematics of hearing using electronic circuits

The human cochlea is a fascinating transduction organ that illustrates the ingenious way in which engineering problems are solved in nature. A healthy cochlea has a dynamic range in the order of~120\,dB; that is, the difference between the roar of the engines of a Boeing~747 and the faintest whisper. We discuss the recent assertion that the cochlea is governed by the dynamics of a Hopf bifurcation. In our cochlea model we discretise the basilar membrane into resonant sections with logarithmically decreasing characteristic frequencies. We show that the observed active behaviour of the cochlea can be modelled as a change in the quality factor of the individual resonant sections in a discretised model, and that this has dynamics which embody the Hopf bifurcation. References S. Camalet, T. Duke, F. Julicher, and J. Prost, Auditory Sensitivity Provided by Self-Tuned Critical Oscillations of Hair Cells. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 97, 2000, pp. 3183--3188. V. M. Eguiluz, M. Ospeck, Y. Choe, A. J. Hudspeth, and M. O. Magnasco, Essential Nonlinearities in Hearing. Physical Review Letters 84, 2000, 5232--5235. E. Fragniere, Analogue VLSI Emulation of the Cochlea, Doctoral Thesis, Departement d'electricite, EPFL, Lausanne, 1998. http://library.epfl.ch/en/theses/?nr=1796 T. J. Hamilton, C. Jin, A. van Schaik, and J. Tapson, An Active 2-D Silicon Cochlea. Biomedical Circuits and Systems, IEEE Transactions on 2, 2008, 30--43. T. J. Hamilton, J. Tapson, C. Jin, and A. van Schaik, Analogue VLSI implementations of two dimensional, nonlinear, active cochlea models, Biomedical Circuits and Systems Conference, 2008. IEEE, 2008, pp. 153--156. A. Kern, J.-J. van der Vyver, and R. Stoop, Towards a biomorphic silicon Hopf cochlea, Proceedings of the 10th IEEE conference on nonlinear dynamics of electronic systems, 2, 2002. A. Kern, and R. Stoop, Essential Role of Couplings between Hearing Nonlinearities, Physical Review Letters 91 (12) 2003, 128101. M. O. Magnasco, A Wave Traveling over a Hopf Instability Shapes the Cochlear Tuning Curve, Physical Review Letters 90 (5) 2003, 058101. C. J. Plack, The Sense of Hearing, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., New Jersey, 2005. M. A. Ruggero, Responses to sound of the basilar membrane of the mammalian cochlea. Current Opinion in Neurobiology 2, 1992, 449--456. S. H. Strogatz, Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos, Westview Press, Cambridge, 1994. J. Tapson, T. J. Hamilton, C. Jin, and A. van Schaik, Self-Tuned Regenerative Amplification and the Hopf Bifurcation, IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS), Seattle, USA, 2008. A. van Schaik, and E. Fragniere, Pseudo-voltage domain implementation of a 2-dimensional silicon cochlea, International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS), Sydney, Australia, 2001, pp. 185--188 vol. 2 doi:10.1109/ISCAS.2001921277

GUITAR COMPOSER LEO BROUWER: THE CONCEPT OF A ‘UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE’

In the realm of art music, Leo Brouwer (1939-) is widely considered as the most significant living composer for the guitar. Since the latter part of the 20th century, students of the guitar at most, if not all, recognized music institutions have increasingly sought to perform Brouwer's works. Correspondingly, at the South African College of Music (University of Cape Town) respected instructors like Elspeth Jack, Neefa van der Schyff, and others, have over many years consistently and devotedly incorporated Brouwer's guitar literature into their teaching programmes. Cape Town's prized composer-conductor Alan Stephenson has similarly developed a keen interest in Brouwer's large-scale works, inspiring in 1998 a memorable rendition of Brouwer's acclaimed Elegiaco Concerto, performed by the talented soloist Christiaan Van der Vyver and the University of Cape Town Orchestra. In line with this, one of Brouwer's underlying goals has been to create works that are accessible to players of varying standards of performance. As a consequence, young, inexperienced, moderate, advanced as well as top internationally-acclaimed virtuosic players have all found some measure of contentment in performing Brouwer's guitar works.

Beyond the Sonderweg

12 Historically Speaking ¦ November/December 2007 hensive inclusion. Thus would Abraham Lincoln take the necessary step thatJefferson found impossible to effect. Speaking prior to his presidency on the Dred Scott decision, Lincoln shone this light on the recurring dilemma: I think the audiors of that notable instrument [the Declaration of Independence] intended to include allmen, but tiiey did not intend to declare all men equal in all respects .... They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth that all were then actually enjoying that equality, nor yet that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. In fact, they had no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right, so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit .12 Continuous? Perhaps not. But certainly sustained, ever resurgent, recoverable. 1 Ernest Gellner, Postmodernism, Reason, and Religion (Routledge, 1992), 71,77-79. ;Joan Gadol, Leon BattistaAlberti: UniversalMan of the Early Renaissance (University of Chicago Press, 1969), 70-71, 198-200. 1 See my article, "The Sixeteenth-Century Venetian Celebration of the Earth's Total Habitability: The Issue of the Fully Habitable World for Renaissance Europe,"Journalof World History 8 (1997): 1-27. * Anthony Pagden, Lords of allthe World: Ideologies of Empire in Spain, Britain, and France c. 1500- c.1800 (Yale University Press, 1995), 11-63; esp. 21-24. 5 HaroldJoseph Berman, Law andRevolution: The Formation of the Western LegalTradition (Harvard University Press, 1983), 199-254. ' Brian Tierney, "Religious Rights: An Historical Perspective" in John Witte,Jr. andJohn D. van der Vyver, eds., Religious Human Rights in GlobalPerspective: Religious Perspectives (Marrinus Nijhoff, 1996), 17-45; esp. 28-29. ' Francisco de Vitoria, Political Writings, eds. Anthony Pagden and Jeremy Lawrance (Cambridge University Press, 1991), 246. " Brian Tierney, The Idea of NaturalRights (William B. Eerdmans, 1997), 273, 286-87. * Hugo Grotius, Prolegomena to the Law of War and Peace (Liberal Arts Press, 1957), Sections 6, 16, and 11. 10Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, 1:13. 11PJ. Marshall and Glyndwr Williams, The GreatMap of Mankind: Perceptions of New Worlds in theAge of Enlightenment (Harvard University Press, 1982), 1. u The Speeches ofAbrahamLincoln, eds. Maureen Harrison and Steve Gilbert (Excellent Books, 2005), 40. Beyond the Sonderweg Sanjay Subrahmanyam John Headley, a well-known specialist of die thought of Martin Luther, Tommaso Campanella, and the ideology of the Spanish Empire, has lately turned to more general reflections within the larger realm of the history of "Western" ideas. Here he poses what appears at first to be a bold challenge . He tells us in effect that we—and he means not the world at large but only those who teach in Anglo-American history departments —have all fallen victim to a form of political correctness over the past couple of decades. (He does not seem currentiy to care what the rest of the world thinks or does in its practice of history: this is quite typical in its own fashion of his Sonderweg). We have apparendy lazily jettisoned three notions that are dear to Headley and his own historical horizon as he has maintained it inviolate over a half century: "the dignity of Western civilization "; the central importance once given to traditional political history; and the key role in history—or at least in the good bits of history— of the Renaissance. Mounting the pulpit provided by this forum, he wishes all of us to repent forthwith and fully rehabilitate all of the above. But before we do that, we must at the very least clearly identify what the real disease is against which Headley wants to inoculate us. It is undesirable rhetorical practice I believe to summon up one's minions for a fight to the death against intellectual Weapons of Mass Destruction that may not even "Entrance of Cortez into Mexico," ca. late 19th century. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division [reproduction number, LC-DIG-pga-01902]. exist. So where is the enemy and can we be sure that he (or it) even exists? The enemy for Headley, I think, is the vague program called world history, which has been gaining slow but sure ground over Western civilization in U.S. colleges and universities for quite...

Providence, conscience of liberty and benevolence – the implications of Luther’s and Calvin’s views on natural law for fundamental rights

Prof. Johan van der Vyver recently identified a need for a Scriptural foundation of human rights. In this article it is argued that together with their evangelical perspectives, Luther’s and Calvin’s Ciceronian re-interpretation of Thomism produced very important perspectives for establishing the moral context of a Scriptural basis for fundamental rights and duties. The impli- cations of the views of both Luther and Calvin on fundamental duties and justice presuppose a moral context from which is- sues related to human rights can be approached. In that regard the views of Luther and Calvin still have much to contribute towards developing an evangelical approach to human rights.

Rediscovery of the Magical: On Fairy Tales, Feminism, and the New South Africa

In his 1984 essay "The Rediscovery of the Ordinary: Some New Writings in South Africa," Njabulo Ndebele famously calls for South African authors to direct their energies away from what he terms the "spectacular"--the broad, dramatic presentation of the injustices of the apartheid system--and to "rediscover the ordinary," focusing their attention on the details of the everyday lives of the South African people, thereby producing writing that can "break down the barriers of the obvious in order to reveal new possibilities of understanding and action" (52-53). In the years following its publication, Ndebele's essay has become a touchstone for critical projections about the future of South [End Page 246] African literature. 1 Although much of this work is fascinating, repeated invocation threatens to turn "the ordinary" into an empty catchphrase. In this essay, I suggest that a re-examination of Ndebele's piece demonstrates the flexibility and range of his notion of the ordinary, one that includes not only the quotidian but also, paradoxically, the magical. Ndebele's essay examines three short stories by contemporary black South African writers. The first two examples are realistic treatments of the experiences of young black men. In his discussion of the first, Michael Siluma's calmly analytical story "The Conversion," Ndebele suggests that the ordinary "is sobering rationality; it is the forcing of attention on necessary detail" (53). Next, he praises Joel Matlou, author of "Man Against Himself," for his philosophical insight and his "honest rendering of the subjective experience of his character" (55). But Ndebele then turns to Bheki Meseko's "Mamlambo," in which a woman enlists the help of a magical snake in winning the love of a good man. Ndebele remarks that "Maseko's stories always remind [him] of Haitian paintings: vibrant with colour, a combination of naturalistic and fantastic elements"; nothing would seem further from "sobering rationality," but Ndebele asserts that the tale "is probably the most thematically ordinary" of the stories that he has discussed (56). This third example represents a key shift not only because, as Anthony O'Brien has noted, it turns toward the concerns of women and therefore opens up a space for feminist analysis, but also because it suggests an important role for magic and excess in South African literature. 2 While Ndebele focuses on fiction by black South Africans, his insights about the ordinary can be productively turned to the analysis of literature by white South Africans, not as an excuse for white writers to retreat from the realm of the political--"to go on furlough, to loiter," as Lewis Nkosi has accused white writing of doing (75)--but as a way of positing new and productive directions for postapartheid literature by all South African writers, both black and white. Marita van der Vyver's Entertaining Angels, a novel that deliberately positions itself on the threshold of the postapartheid period, offers one set of ways to rediscover the ordinary: it extends Ndebele's gesture toward issues of gender and the magical by asserting the importance of feminism and fairy tales.

Van der Vyver’s analysis of rights: a case study drawn from thirteenth-century canon law

In an important article published in 1988, Johan Van der Vyver challenged the prevailing reliance on Wesley Hohfeld’s taxonomy of rights. Hohfeld's division of rights into claims, powers, privileges and immunities, Van der Vyver stresses, is excessively concerned with "inter-individual legal relations” at the expense of the right-holder's relationship to the object of the right. Van der Vyver proposes instead that an assertion of right involves three distinct juridic aspects:• legal capacity, which is "the competence to occupy the offices of legal subject;• legal claim, which "comprises claims of a legal subject as against other persons to a legal object";• legal entitlement, which specifies the boundaries of the right-holder's ability to use, enjoy, consume, destroy or alienate the right in question.This article applies Van der Vyver’s taxonomy to the operations of thirteenthcentury canon law, and demonstrates that Van der Vyver’s analysis provides greater depth than Hohfeld's, in that it considers both the relationship of the person claiming a particular right and the object of that right.

The biography and biology of liberty: Abraham Kuyper and the American experiment

In part because of Johan van der Vyver’s pioneering work, Abraham Kuyper, the Dutch theologian, educator, journalist, and politician, is well-known in South Africa. This article examines the lesser-known relationship between Kuyper's political theology and American law and politics. Kuyper praised American constructions of religious liberty and pluralism, separation of church and state, and free association and political pluralism. In Kuyper’s view, these were the political fruits of an historical Calvinism that needed to be restored to political respectability if the American experiment was to live up to its promise. While taking much of Kuyper’s point, this article argues that Kuyper both overstated the Calvinist contributions to the American experiment, and failed to appreciate the unique covenantal theology that informed the Puritan Calvinist legal and political contributions that were made. Two illustrations of this influence are offered: (I) how the Puritans' emerging theology o f liberty of covenant contributed to American views of religious liberty; and (2) how the Puritans’ emerging sociology of covenants o f liberty contributed uniquely to American views of social and political pluralism.

Regte, gesag en waardes

Rights, authority and valuesIn view of Johan van der Vyver's immense contribution to the clarification of the meaning of legal concepts, the establishment of terminology, the analysis of doctrines and the explanation of the foundations of matters, it is considered appropriate in this article to revisit a question which has occupied jurists since time immemorial, namely what a right might be. This question cannot be addressed without dealing with the context in which it stands. Therefore the fa te of the doctrine of subjective rights is firstly traced, after which the phenomena of human rights and fundamental rights are discussed Following these analyses, the question whether a single, comprehensive concept of right is viable is considered. In this context the need for the legal scholar to thoroughly consider the origin or justification for the existence of government authority is motivated. It seems as though unanimity about a concept o f right at anything beyond a relatively superficial, mechanical level is not really possible, but that a meaningful scholarly discourse on the matter is possible, at least among scholars who acknowledge the determining role of unverifiable presuppositions in the practice of scholarship. Finally it is argued that there is a connection between the values of the Constitution, the exercise of government authority and the development of a South African concept of right.

Die verdienstes en tekortkominge van ’n alsydige regsakademikus. ’n Kritiese waardering van Johan van der Vyver se bydrae tot die regswetenskap in Suid-Afrika

The merits and demerits of an all-rounder legal ac ademic. A critical appraisal of Johan van der Vyver’s contribution to legal scholarship in South Africa This article assesses the contribution of Johan van der Vyver to legal scholarship in South Africa. It does so with reference to his qualities and contributions as:• all-rounder,• mentor;• Neo-Calvinist legal philosopher,• herald of human rights,• scholar and theoretician of Private Law and• scholar and theoretician of Public Law. His achievement as legal academic is not merely described but also appraised. It is argued that he must primarily be seen as a Neo-Calvinist legal philosopher in the Kuyperian tradition. His work as one of three foremost academic exponents of the idea and practice of human rights in South Africa is all the more remarkable because his initial ideas were developed in an environment not particularly conducive to an endeavour of this kind. As scholar of Private Law his main contribution has been the development of the theory of subjective rights in Private Law (and in a purist vein). He is, however, criticised for a paucity of reflection on the development of a similar theory in Public Law.