matively correct (Swedish: normenlig) application of coercive measures, force and sanctions.507Valid law thus constitutes a determination, a decision on whether or not a coercive measure can be legally applied to a case. It is therefore safe to assume that valid law constitutes the final result of a process where the meaning of positive law has been ascertained through an operation of interpretation performed with the application of a certain rule kept in mind.508 This characteristic of valid law - the applicability of a coercive measure prescribed by positive law - must not, however, be confused with the actual application of the prescripts of valid law (here called the efficacy of law or the law in force), as the latter concept of law refers to various sociological phenomena rather than to normative phenomena.The actual efficacy of law is an issue before which valid law stands principally indifferent and is unable to determine and answer, especially if one considers that the question of valid law belongs to a normative rather than to a descriptive discourse. To Hägerström, the concept valid law, provided that it is understood as being an already existing material object in the same manner as positive law, must be a fiction originating in a misunderstanding of the concept positive law.The reason for Hägerström’s conclusion is that what the jurist in fact does when he applies, what is generally called, valid law is to apply the content of legislation and judicial practice (law as an object) to a specific case, but he does not apply valid law itself as a pre-existent, objectively binding legal order.509 Furthermore, it is not the task of jurisprudence to give an exact reproduction of legislation, which jurisprudence would have to do if valid law constituted an objectively binding legal order; for valid law, which it is the task of jurisprudence to determine and define, constitutes much more a ca l l f o r s c i e n t i f i c p u r i t y 539 507 Hägerström,“Stat och statsformer (1921),” pp. 201-218;“Förhållandet mellan staten och rätten (1924),” pp. 268-272; Selbstdarstellungen, pp. 1-5;“Begreppet gällande rätt,” pp. 62-65. 508 Hägerström, “Stat och statsformer (1921),” pp. 216-218. 509 Hägerström, “Begreppet gällande rätt,” pp. 86-88.
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