25th IVR World Congress: Law, Science and Technology
25th IVR World Congress Law and technology
Frankfurt am Main
15–20 August 2011
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- Discourse theory of law (1) (remove)
- 100
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Public hearings as proceduralization of popular sovereignty policies in supreme courts : an intersubjective approach
(2012)
- This paper aims to discuss in which sense public hearings in supreme courts of democratic rules of law can be seen as proceduralization of popular sovereignty policies. These policies constitute expressions of a normative claim for a wider “publicization of law” by democratic states’ institutional powers and organs; a claim that becomes evident when one undertakes an intersubjective interpretation of law. This theoretical argument will be presented in the first section of the paper through a new articulation of Jürgen Habermas’ discursive theory of law and his most recent studies on the concept of political public sphere. The theoretical section gives normative and procedural criteria for the second section of the paper, which consists on a critical analysis of the procedures and practical cases of public hearings held at the Brazilian Supreme Court, constituting the first scientific study to date on the Court’s use of this legal instrument.
