importance today that legal methodology, regardless of the legal order, finally admits that legislative history is in fact a proper source of law. This is simply because it is there - in any legislative process - and because it always has at least a potential use in statutory interpretation. The question of how legislative history is employed, and to what extent, is probably one of the most interesting areas of research today, but this field will not be opened until it is generally acknowledged that legislative history is in fact a source of law on equal terms with both case law and legal writings.22This lack of research is especially disturbing when one considers that legislative history was transformed into a proper source of law in Europe as early as the nineteenth century, and was subject to discussion within legal theory during that period. The historical situation today can be compared with developments in the early nineteenth century. It has been suggested by other scholars that legislative history first became a problem in legal theory when legislative history became sufficiently important in terms of quantity, quality and availability as a source of information to be used regularly by the courts.This occurred as soon as the forms of legislation were transformed into a more complex and public process - that is, when the executive was forced to share law-making duties with a parliamentary body, in which proposals for new laws could be discussed publicly.23 The question of whether or not legislative history formed a legitimate source of information to be used in courts mirrors the present discussion. On returning briefly to the case of the Commission against Sweden the parallel becomes obvious. It is clear that the primary concern of the Commission was the ability of consumers to acquire full knowledge regarding their new rights. Inserting a part of a Community law r i chard nordqu i st 207 22 In a well-known and widely read attempt to define a theory of legal argumentation, the author excludes legislative history from the sources of law:“... der juristische Diskurs [unterscheidet sich] vom allgemeinen praktischen Diskurs dadurch ... , daß seine Freiheit ... durch Gesetz, Präjudiz, Dogmatik ... eingeschränkt wird.”, R.Alexy, Theorie der juristischen Argumentation, 2nd ed., Frankfurt a.M. 1991, p. 37. 23 S. Strömholm, Rätt rättskällor och rättstillämpning, Stockholm1996, p. 359; J. Schröder, Recht alsWissenschaft. Geschichte der juristischen Methode vom Humanismus bis zur historischen Schule, München 2001, p. 231; Baden p. 374. 3. th e r i s e of l e g i s lat i ve h i story as a s ourc e of law: a n i nete e nth c e ntury ph e nome non
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