Law and Interpretation

Abstract

The article deals with the problem of relationship between law and interpretation. Arguing that the ontological origins of legality can be found not only in the Greek Nomos, but also in the Roman term ius, it is shown how the fundamental basis of law opens up in a hermeneutical perspective. The article analyses Gadamer’s contribution to the rethinking of legal hermeneutics and reveals the nihilistic groundlessness of law found in Vattimo’s hermeneutics. And such nihilism discloses not abstractly, but effectively and actually – i.e. in the interpretative perspective of the application of Law (laws). It is shown that it is precisely in the (nihilistic) interpretation we can see, that application of law is not only techne. From the perspective of the ontology of law (Law), this is not only the retrieval of the significance of application to legal hermeneutics, but also a move that enables the transition in the ontological problematic from Nomos to ius.