free course of constitutional law

archives
dissertations 
comparative constitutional law 
mistakes

lexicon

methodology

web sites 

constitutionnal texts
philosophy of law
 

magical help 

find in constitutional law

China and rule of law

 

           for my students:

University of Burgundy 
IEP of Paris
 
DU China

 

           more :

texts
books
web sites

travels 

 
more about the author


 

 

 

 English version   French version 

Editorial :

It is time to inaugurate a critical approach of our democratic and occidental constitutional law. A critical approach can help to study the metaphysical and theological dimension of constitutional law. We cannot adopt a classical approach like the positivist approach that is prevailing today.
Following the positivist approach, we would have simply to describe and annotate the positive constitutions as interpreted by the constitutional tribunals. Or we should only try to find the Constitutional rules that we must apply in a situation. Of course, the positivist approach is useful. But this approach can only give us a pedagogical view of our constitutions and constitutional jurisprudence. At the end, we can only hope to build the epistemology of the so-called “science of constitutional law” with the aim to study the language and the logic of constitutional law.
But such an epistemology identifies constitutional law to a positive law no connected with its no positive sources.
We cannot adopt too the approach of political science. Because the critic made by political science is based on a social theory of law which is unable to understand its own ontological commitments.
Only a radical critic can reveal what is hidden: the axiomatic part of occidental constitutional law. Our approach supposes not only to ask historical questions ; it implies a speculative and theological inquiring.

send me an email

 

- Read my Juridical Theology [Publisher /Amazon]

 Read the introduction in French

- Symposium : Myths of foundation and Europe. Dijon. Autumn 2010. For more informations

Topo:

Occidental history has been punctuated with foundation myths replicating the Roman system. According to this system, the political power arose from an apotheosis: Romulus, king of Rome, vanished into a fierce storm. The king became, accordingly, son of God and father of Rome. This mythical foundation will be reused and developed by Titus Livius and Virgil. It will be the source of the Trojan legend of the Roman people, of the Frankish people too. Poets praised the glory of the political foundation of Rome; the Law – whether pontifical, sovereign or customary – took from such political foundation the origin of its coercive power. But before the Law is implemented, it must reach the step of the formation of its legitimacy; a “pre-historical” legitimacy (M. Serres).
Curiously, while the European legal system is in the course of elaboration, Europe does not seem to arise from any foundation myth and, a fortiori, appears to have grown independently of the Roman system. It is not sure that poets, despite Goethe, Victor Hugo and others, built an European mythology. However, in France, authors as Jules Michelet or Eugène Sue did achieve to coin the foundation myth of the French republican regime. How can Europe institutionalise itself without having recourse to the logos of the mythos? How can Europe become aware of itself, picture itself? Can European institutions, in pursuit of a founder force, content themselves – because they must be democratic – to grant a larger credit to consent, without taking root in any symbol or myth?
The conference, organised by Centre Georges Chevrier, University of Burgundy, CNRS and Sciences Po wishes to gather lawyers, political scientists, arts specialists, philosophers in order to think about the crucial question of the foundation of institutional Europe. This is just at a time when European political events show us that the necessary link between Europe and European people declines, assuming that it has ever existed. The will is not to “mythologise”
Europe. The will is rather, helped by a “mythique concrète” (P. Ricœur), to come back to foundation myths in order to be able to understand how the occidental power is made an is being made. We can then hope to better identify forces and weaknesses of today’s juridical and political Europe and sound out its ontological fragility. This research must drive us, first, to think about the nature and function of foundation myths, notably through the study of the Roman mythical system. Then, it must lead us to get back to the imperial question and to that of the Christian roots of Europe. Eventually, other occidental (USA) or oriental (China) systems will be observed.

 

 

 

Find in the web site:

 

Google
 
sur tout le site

 

 e est entièrement gratuit et non sponsoris