247 theory of interpretation into the Finnish legal theory. According to Wrede, no one original lawgiver’s will always existed in the first place; when enacting a law, the estates and the emperor only sanctioned the text of the statutes, not a lawgiver’s will. Wrede was greatly influenced by German conceptual jurisprudence {Begriffsjurisprudenz): for him, it was up to the interpreter to unravel, not create, the legal norms {Rechtssätze) for which a statute was an expression. A statute was to be interpreted systematically, as part of a whole; therefore, interpretation could at times turn out contradictory to the wording of a statute. For instance, this could happen should two statutes turn out to be contradictory. In cases of legal lacunae, interpretation had to be in concordance with the “general principles of justice and equity” and it could not go against common legal sense. For Wrede, analogy as an interpretational device was allowed, because it was difficult for the lawgiver to think of all the possible situations of application beforehand. Like Ekström, Wrede associated the interpretational normof PS 1 Chapterthat the interpretation clarify the “meaning and ground” of the statute - with the present and public opinion rather than the will of the past lawgiver. For Serlachius some years later, the legal professional’s role was equally creative. According to him, the judge was to “find law” or interpret “not only written law, but also legal conceptions not dressed in the form of written lawor unenacted law.” The office of the judge could never turn out to be a mere “automatic pronouncer of the law,” and it was neither desirable nor possible to completely remove subjective elements fromlegal interpretation. Not even the most perfect lawcould entirely substitute for the judge’s “ars honi et aequi”^^ In an article, “Some Thoughts on the Doctrine of Legal Interpretation” (“Eräitä laintulkintaopillisia näkökohtia”), published in 1926, Aatos Alanen pronounced himself clearly in favor of the objective theory. Alanen’s writing reflects the difficulties that the subjective theory faced withthe systematic conception of law. For Alanen, law was to be understood as a system, although different parts of it originated fromdifferent periods, and law’s primary task was to serve “the interests of human life.” Common legal sense and arguments of expediency had to be put to the service of the systematization, and it was even possible to depart fromthe wording of the statute, should common legal sense so demand.Like Wrede, Alanen took a positive stand toward the judiciary’s law-creative function. Fie agreed with the Freirechtsschule in that the judiciary be given “an ever greater law-creating function. Kivimäki’s article “New Currents in the Field of Civil Law” (“Uusia vir34 « Wrede 1896 pp. 349-354. Serlachius 1910 pp. 33-37. Alanen 1926 pp. 99-104. Ibid. pp. 105-107. In general, the Freirechtsschule did not attract followers among Finnish legal scholars. 17
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