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Legisprudence. International Journal for the Study of
Legislation.
Editors’
Preface On Behalf of the Boards
Luc J. Wintgens
and Jaap Hage
Legisprudence
has a short history, but a long tradition. Many philosophers, from
Plato and Aristotle on, have said their word on legislation. From
Tacitus to Montesquieu, complaints about legislative quality were
heard. However, the legal and political philosophy that guides
current legal thinking never came to a systematic, theoretical study
of legislation,. The findings of legal
theory are still, to a large extent, premised on the central role of
the
judge in the legal system. Although this approach may be applauded
for having contributed to a more
dynamic attitude towards the law, the role of the legislator
remains
largely underexposed.
Traditional
legal theory takes the law as a given, and limits its theoretical undertakings to law
as it is. Law, so it is said, is the result of political
decision-making. Legislation as a matter of politics is not
rational. Politics is believed to be a power game, resulting in
compromises that are framed into a legislative or statutory structure. This power
game seems to have its own “logic”, the results of which most of the time outweigh any
other form of logic.
Legal
theory for its part is considered, from the perspective of politics
at least, to be a “theoretical”
approach to legal problems. It contributes to the description and
systematization of existing valid law. It shows up, like
Minerva's owl, after the sunset of legislative activity. From that
perspective, there is not much hope that legal theory can usefully
intervene in the process of legislation or regulation, that is,
before or during the
creation of rules.
Criticism
of this view is triggered by the exponential growth of today's legal
systems. Complaints about both
the increasing volume of legislation and its decreasing quality in most European countries,
have raised the question as to whether collaboration between legislators and
legal theory can help to articulate and to solve that problem.
Therefore, this
journal considers legislation from a different angle. The premises
of the new approach are that, although legislation and regulation
are the results of a political process, they can be the object of a
theoretical study. Legisprudence focuses on the creation of
law, a subject that has been largely underexposed until now. Its object of study is
the rational creation of
legislation and regulation. As to its method, it makes use of
the theoretical insights and tools of current legal theory.
Whereas the latter has been dealing most of the time dealing with
problems of the application of law by the judge, legisprudence explores the
possibilities of the enlargement of the field of study as to
include the creation
of law by the
legislator.
Existing journals for legislation
(eg, Zeitschrift für
Gesetzgebung (Germany), Statute Law Review (UK) Leges (Switserland), Regelmaat (the Netherlands),
Legislaçao (Portugal), Iter Iuris (Italy), and Tijdschrift voor Wetgeving
(Belgium), Harvard Journal on
Legislation (USA)) publish contributions that are mainly related
to national law, or to technical aspects of legislation. Theoretical
study of legislation is not their primary object. This justifies the
creation of a new journal, with a new approach to both legislation
and legal theory. Legisprudence aims at contributing to the
improvement of legislation by studying the processes of legislation
from the perspective of legal theory.
The content of the journal covers
legislation in a broad sense. This comprises legislation in both the
formal and the material sense (from national and European
parliaments, regulation, international law), and alternatives to
legislation (covenants, sunset legislation, etc). It also takes in
regulation such as pseudo-legislation, codes of behaviour and
deontological codes, etc.
The journal is theoretical and
reflective. Contributions to the journal preferably make use of an
interdisciplinary method in legal theory. Comparative and system
transcending approaches are encouraged. Sociological, historical, or
economic studies are taken into account to the extent that they are
relevant from the perspective of interdisciplinary legal theory.
Dogmatic descriptions of positive law, however, are not taken into
consideration.
Articles preferably focus on
systematic (as opposed to historical) issues, including (but not
limited to): the utility and the necessity of codification,
informatics in legislation, the use of scientific research in the
creation of legislation, vague norms, the relation between law and
language, creation and interpretation of law, fictions in
legislation, the relation between the legislator and the judge,
judicial review and problems of democracy, conflicts of norms from
the point of view of the legislator, the exponential growth of
legislation, evaluation of legislation, effectivity, efficacy and
efficiency of legislative rules, multi-lingual legislation, access
to legislation, constitutionalism, legalism, principles of
legislation, rights and legislation, legislative technique, the
concept of the state, separation of powers, the primacy of politics,
regulation management, legitimation of
law.
A new journal is a signal of the
institutionalisation of a scientific field or theoretical domain. It
identifies a scientific community characterised by an object of
study. Legisprudence may be new in the sense that it has a short
history. However, it has a long tradition that this journal want to
make explicit and uphold: the search for ever better legislation in
a democratic society.
Organisational
structure
Luc Wintgens and Jaap Hage are the
general editors.
The general editors are in charge of the practical aspects of
publication (contact with authors, reviewers, and publisher), and
makes, where necessary, the policy decisions, in consultation with
the board of advisors.
The Board of Advisors makes suggestions as to
authors and topics for articles, as well as to the general policy of
the journal.
Members of the Board of Advisors are:
Aulis Aarnio, Robert Alexy, Manuel Atienza, Eugenio Bulygin, John
Gardner, Tatsuo Inoue, Neil MacCormick, Antonio Martino, Frank
Michelman, Stanley Paulson, Aleksander Peczenik (+), Gunther
Teubner, Michel Troper, and Jeremy Waldron.
The Board of
Editors consists of academics and professionals in law.
They review articles, make suggestions as to authors and topics, and
help in the distribution of the journal. The members of the board of
editors will be asked to review a maximum of two articles per year,
which means approximately 40-50 pages of text.
Members of the
Board of Editors are:
André-Jean Arnaud, Louis
Assier-Andrieu, Zenon Bankowski, Hugo Cyr, John S. Bell, Samantha
Besson, Pierre Brunet, Emilios Christodoulidis, Wojciech Cyrul,
Philip Eijlander, Svein Eng, Ake Frändberg, Juha Karhu, Eerik
Lagerspetz, Francisco Laporta, Luzius Mader, Tomo Morigiwa, François
Ost, Pasquale Policastro, Wojciech Sadurski, Giovanni Sartor, René
Sève, Horacio Spector, Jerzy Stelmach, Tomasz Gizbert-Studnicki,
Vaidotas Vaicaitis, Scott Veitch, Wim Voermans, Pauline Westerman,
Xingzhong Yu, and Marek Zirk
Sadowski
Publication
policy
Legisprudence is published three times a year by
Hart Publishing at Oxford, from spring 2007 onwards. The
summer issue focuses on a special topic, while the winter issue is a
regular one. Each issue contains 5 to 6 articles, and each volume
contains no more than 330 pages. The journal is published
simultaneously in a printed and in an electronic version. Apart from
this location on the website, the journal has its own webpage at the
Hart Publishing website.
see website at
Hart Publishing
Guidelines for authors are
provided, in line with the house style of Hart Publishing. Authors
are kindly requested to follow these guidelines stringently so as to
reduce the cost of editing to a minimum. This is the only way to
keep the price of the journal close to production cost. Therefore,
no articles longer than 20 pages according to the journal's template
can be published. The journal has no book review
section.
According to the
highest international scientific standards, as a general rule all
articles submitted are subjected to double blind
review.
The journal expressly aims at stimulating young
scholars and students in the field of legal theory to whom at least
20 percent of the publication space is reserved. Candidates are
vividly encouraged to contact the general editor at an early stage
of their work in order to discuss their plan.
Publication scheme
The journal is launched in
March 2007. The spring issue of the first volume are presented at
the 23rd IVR congress in Cracow (August 1-6).
Planned topics
for the special issues are:
The European Constitution
(2007)
Legislation and Legal Certainty (2008)
Logic for
Legislation
Legislation and Artificial
Intelligence
Interpretation of Legislation
Judicial
Review
Human Rights in Legislation
Alternatives for
Legislation
Evaluation of Legislation
Practical
organisation
The board of advisors and the board of
editors meet at the planned IVR congresses in Crakow (2007), Beijing
(2009), San Francisco and Frankfurt. The agenda of these meetings is
communicated long enough in advance, so as to allow members who can
not attend them to make their written comments known to the general
editor.
In order to reduce the meetings to a minimum, no intermediary or
special reunions are planned. If necessary a consultation of the
boards will be organised via internet.
The postal address of the journal is : Centre for Legislation,
Regulation and Legisprudence (CLRL) Vrijheidslaan 17 B-1081
Belgium.
You can send a message to juliane.ottmann@kubrussel.ac.be
or to luc.wintgens@kubrussel.ac.be
Instructions for
authors
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