certainty through a grammatical interpretation of the legislative text itself (provided that the text did not contain any editorial mistakes or misprints).487 The reason given as to why preparatory works are excepted from the class of legal sources is that according to Hägerström preparatory works and motives constitute the means by which the jurist ascertains the historical legislator’s will or intent with a specific piece of legislation, rather than constituting a directly applicable norm as does, for example, legislation.488 Preparatory works and motives are thus texts that constitute factual and historical, rather than normative, material. Hägerström argues that the subjective interpretative method constitutes an insufficient guide to the jurist when it comes to ascertaining the proper meaning and application of legislation, because the results thus arrived at, taken by themselves, are too narrow in scope, that is too historically fixed, to be of direct practical guidance to the practicing jurist. In fact, the demands of society force the jurist, when performing the literal interpretation and exegesis of a statute, to take the entire legal order into consideration, whereby the subjective method of interpretation must immediately be supplemented or even replaced with an objective method of interpretation in order to arrive at acceptable results.489 Finally, the formulation of an unequivocal legally relevant will or intention, which is to have the desired normative effect that the subjective method of interpretation wishes to establish (due to the peculiarities of the legislative process) is impossible to formulate with sufficient precision. When analyzing Hägerström’s critique of legal positivism one must take into account that there are two extremes of it that he a ca l l f o r s c i e n t i f i c p u r i t y 533 487 Hägerström, Objektiva rättens begrepp, p. 36; “The Notion of Law,” pp. 97-98. 488 Cf. Hägerström, Objektiva rättens begrepp, p. 19; “The Notion of Law,” pp. 77-78. 489 Hägerström, Objektiva rättens begrepp, pp. 17-19; “The Notion of Law,” pp. 75-78. 8 . 3 legal pos i t ivi sm and method
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjYyNDk=