such a thing as a fish.What is central to Hägerström’s analysis is whether or not the state accords a specific type of protection to certain interests. And whether or not the persons appealing to the state’s protection of these interests, rights, fulfill the legal requirements.The popular determination of a right, as something, either or both, an ideal or as a power elevated above nature, such as the power to bind the essential being, the soul or spirit, of another person is thus nonsense. And it is in this respect - that is, if we cling to the popular idea of the nature of rights and duties - that every legal act becomes an exercise of magic.230 As Hägerström writes: “Dass ein solcher Zusammenhang magischer Natur ist, und dass wir also, soweit uns die populäre Auffassung vom Eigentumsrecht beherrscht, Magie üben, wenn wir z. B. Fische auf dem Markt kaufen, kann nicht bezweifelt werden.”231 Accordingly, Hägerström’s view on subjective rights resembles the Roman one (albeit without the magical implications), for the pivotal point is not the right in itself, but those specific legal facts to which specific legal consequences are attached (for example, in Roman law the existence of an actio gave the plaintiff a legal remedy).232 The right in itself does not give rise to anything at all.What defines the right is the existence of a constitutive element, which is the legal fact (cf. the Roman iustus causa) stipulating under what circumstances a right, in this case as a legal consequence, is at hand. In other words, what defines a right is the existence of a legal norm connecting a legal fact to a legal consequence. It must be added that the positions of legal fact and legal consequence respectively are not absolute; a right is not to be identified exclusively with only one of these positions, for once a legal consequence has been determinedit in turn becomes a legal fact, but this time as a “right.”233 This, for example, is the a ca l l f o r s c i e n t i f i c p u r i t y 451 230 Ibid., pp. 83-84. 231 Ibid., p. 84. 232 Hägerström, “Nehrman-Ehrenstråles uppfattning,” p. 595; Recht, Pflicht etc, p. 42. 233 See, e.g., Ekelöf ’s analysis of the legal right. Ekelöf points to the problems with a one-sided analysis of legal concepts into the exclusive position of either legal fact
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjYyNDk=