1 Schimmel, Annemarie, Sufismus: Eine Einführung in die islamische Mystik, 41–42 (2000).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Foucault, Michel, Surveiller et punir: Naissance de la prison, 9–12 (1975).Google Scholar

3 See the descriptions behind this concept of an operatively closed but cognitively open system in Binet, Lise, Le droit comme système social ou la méthode systèmique appliquée au droit“ 32 Cahiers de droit 439, 446 (1991).Google Scholar

4 Locus classicus, Teubner, Gunther, Law as an Autopoietic System (1993).Google Scholar

5 See e.g. Jerusalem, Franz W., Kritik der Rechtswissenschaft (1948).Google Scholar

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8 See also Villey, Michel, Philosophie du droit: Définitions et fins du droit, Les moyens du droit, 276 (2001).Google Scholar

9 Wolfgang Fikentscher: Methoden des Rechts in vergleichender Darstellung, Bd. IV: Dogmatischer Teil, 129 (1977).Google Scholar

10 See Amstutz, Marc, Das Gesetz, in Rechtsfiguren: K(l)eine Festschrift für Pierre Tercier 155, 162 et seq, (Gauch Peter & Pascal Pichonnaz eds., 2003); Marc Amstutz/Vaios Karavas, Rechtsmutation: Zu Genese und Evolution des Rechts im transnationalen Raum, 8 Rechtsgeschichte 14, 17 (2006).Google Scholar

11 See the fundamental thoughts of Pierre Moor: Pour une théorie micropolitique du droit, 185 (2005).Google Scholar

12 The fact that statutes are so important for societal structures begs the question of whether this medium recognizes an equivalent in Anglo-Saxon legal orders. The question is obviously too complex to be discussed in the context of a footnote. However, I would presume that precedent assumes the function in these legal circles that statutes do in civil law systems (an indication of this is the fact that the important decisions that have lead to formal legal rules are cited using the names of one or both of the parties [e.g. the names Brown v. Board of Education, Lochner, or Addiston pipes are quoted in the same way as we would, in civil law systems, quote Art. 2 ZGB [Swiss Civil Code] or § 823 BGB [German Civil Code]). Despite the differences in application between Continental-European statutes and Anglo-Saxon precedent cases, the textuality of both types of legal source ought to “work” according to the same pattern.Google Scholar

13 Derrida, Jacques, Force of Law: The “Mystical Foundation of Authority”, 11 Cardozo law Review, 919, 976 (1990).Google Scholar

14 See e.g. Simon, Dieter, Die Unabhängigkeit des Richters, 3 (1975).Google Scholar

15 Luhmann, Niklas, Law as a Social System, 164 (2004).Google Scholar

16 Id., 165.Google Scholar

17 Parsons, Talcott, General Theory in Sociology, in Sociology Today 3, 16 (Robert K. Merton et al. eds., 1959); See also Luhmann, Niklas, Die Politik der Gesellschaft 62 et seq, 79 (2000).Google Scholar

18 See also Wiethölter, Rudolf, Sozialwissenschaftliche Modelle im Wirtschaftsrecht, Kristiche Justiz 18, 126, 127 (1985).Google Scholar

19 See, supra, note 10.Google Scholar

20 Luhmann, Niklas, Einführung in die Systemtheorie, 3rd edition, 121 (2006).Google Scholar

21 The concept of “exaptation” was introduced by Vrba and Gould: “[…] Vrba and I proposed that features coopted for a current utility following an origin for a different function (or for no function at all) be called exaptations… that is useful or aptus) as a consequence of (ex) their form in contrast with adaptations, or features directly crafted for their current utility.” Stephen Jay Gould, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, 1232 (2002).Google Scholar

22 The perhaps most spectacular example of an exaptation for lay-people was presented by Gould in 1992: he used his own example visiting the Washington zoo, just after the pandas that had been given to the USA by China as a gift had arrived. He observed the animals whilst eating bamboo, and was very impressed by their adeptness at manipulating the bamboo sticks. Then he realized that this adeptness resulted from the fact that the pandas had a thumb in addition to the usual five fingers. “Do pandas have six fingers?” Gould asked himself. In literature on anatomy he found an answer: the pandas’ thumb is no finger, but rather an extra, hypertrophic joint, that has been integrated in their joint- and finger muscle-network in the course of evolution. Nature – confronted with the need for a thumb – had re-functionalized something that already existed, instead of creating something new. Gould teaches us that it can be more genetically complex to create a new organ than to use an already existing (albeit, less than perfect) element. To a certain extent, this is Okham's razor as a pattern of evolution. Today's legal practice reflects this “exaptational” logic, as will be shown in the following.Google Scholar

23 Mayer, Otto, Deutsches Verwaltungsrecht (1924/2004).Google Scholar

24 See also supra, note 11; or on a broader basis see, supra, note 8.Google Scholar

25 Schmitt, Carl, Verfassungslehre, 9, 150 (1993).Google Scholar

26 Vesting, Thomas, Nachbarwissenschaftlich informierte und reflektierte Verwaltungsrechtswissenschaft – «Verkehrsregeln» und «Verkehrsströme», in Methoden der Verwaltungsrechtswissenschaft 253, 258 (Eberhard Schmidt-Aßmann & Wolfgang Hoffmnabb-Riem eds., 2004).Google Scholar

27 For more details on the linguistic turn in legal theory, See Paul Amselek, Propos introductif, in Théorie du droit et science 5, 7 (Paul Amselek ed., 1994).Google Scholar

28 See Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Tractatus logico-philosophicus, 45 (1922): “In the proposition, therefore, its sense is not yet contained, but the possibility of expressing it”.Google Scholar

29 See Marcel Alexander Niggli/Marc Amstutz, Wittgenstein und Recht II: Über Parallelen zur Wittgensteinschen Philosophie in der rechtswissenschaftlichen Methodenlehre, in Gauchs Welt, Recht, Vertragsrecht, Baurecht, Festschrift für Peter Gauch zum 65, 161, 171 (Pierre Tercier et al. eds., 2004).Google Scholar

30 See supra, note 11, 22.Google Scholar

31 See eg. Institut für Politikwissenschaft (IPW), Schweizerische Bundesversammlung: Ein aktives Gesetzgebungsorgan – Eine empirische Untersuchung des Gesetzgebungsprozesses in den Jahren 1995–97, 89 (1998).Google Scholar

32 See supra, note 10 Amsutz 161.Google Scholar

33 See supra, note 10 Amsutz/Karavas 17.Google Scholar

34 Niggli, Marcel Alexander, Zurück zu den 10 Geboten? Gesetzesflut und Strafrecht, in Aufbruch ins dritte Jahrtausend: Milleniums-Vorträge an der Universität Freiburg, Freiburg i.Ue.: Universitätsverlag 136, 140 (Adrian Holderegge ed., 2000), 136, 140.Google Scholar

35 See, supra, note 15, 293.Google Scholar

36 See, supra, note 15, 293.Google Scholar

37 Almost paradigmatically, Kramer, Ernst A., Juristische Methodenlehre, 2. Auflage, 203 (2005) (holding that a judicial exception to a written rule is justified only in extreme cases; the fact that a rule leads to a inadequate or even unacceptable situation in everyday life is not enough to depart from the letter of the law); See also Rasehorn, Theo, Justiz, in Handlexikon zur Rechtswissenschaft, 227, 230 (Axel Görlitz ed., 1972) (according to whom the judiciary is deeply entrenched in the belief that Law and Politics are strictly partitioned realms, although they are both, objectively, necessary to order society); with similar arguments, Schmidt, Lothar, Gesetz, in Handlexikon zur Rechtswissenschaft, 140, 145 (Axel Görlitz ed., 1972) who used an image of Law as a barrier between politicians and Law.Google Scholar

38 Görlitz, Axel: Justizreform, in Handlexikon zur Rechtswissenschaft, 232, 237 (Axel Görlitz ed., 1972) (Legal positivism is considered to be an ideological umbrella over such strategies of immunization [sc. Strategies that immunize judges against attempts to politicize Law], which wanted to protect jurisprudence against external influences, particularly political influences. To this end, a specific legal method was developed that seemed to provide for legal solutions only to legal problems); See also Walter R. Schluep: Einladung zur Rechtstheorie 703, 817 and 1253 (2006).Google Scholar

39 Ryffel, Hans, Rechtssoziologie: Eine systematische Orientierung, 231 (1974).Google Scholar

40 See supra, note 11, 169.Google Scholar

41 Wittgenstein, Ludwig: Philosophical Investigations, 3rd ed., 1–2 (1999).Google Scholar

42 Id., 2.Google Scholar

43 see e.g. supra, note 8, 295.Google Scholar

44 See Grey, Thomas C. The Constitution as Scripture, 37 Stanford Law Review 1–25 (1984).Google Scholar

45 For a good illustration of this, See Honsell, Heinrich, Art. 1 ZGB, in Basler Kommentar zum Schweizerischen Privatrecht: Zivilgesetzbuch I (Art. 1–456 ZGB) (Heinrich Honsell et al. eds., 2003,) (The prima facie equal mentioning of, wording’ and interpretation’ leads us to assume that interpretation may be (such as in the Codex Theresianus) a level separate from the actual text. However, this assumption is incorrect. It is rather about that old pair of opposites letters/sense, lettre/esprit, scriptum/sententia).Google Scholar

46 See Stoljar, Natalie, Interpretation, Indeterminacy and Authority: Some Recent Controversies in the Philosophy of Law, 11 Journal of Political Philosophy, 470, 481 (2003).Google Scholar

47 See in substantial detail Taylor, George H.: Structural Textualism, 75 Boston University Law Review 321, 338 (1995).Google Scholar

48 See Id. 338.Google Scholar

49 See Goebel, Joachim, Rechtsgespräch und kreativer Dissens: Zugleich ein Beitrag zur Bedeutung der Sprache in der interpretativen Praxis des Zivilprozesses, 67 (2001).Google Scholar

50 Id. 71.Google Scholar

51 See Stoljar, Natalie, Interpretation, Indeterminacy and Authority: Some Recent Controversies in the Philosophy of Law, 11 Journal of Political Philosophy, 470, 472 (2003); Fish, Stanley, There is no Textualist Position, 42 San Diego Law Review 629 (2005); Goldsworthy, Jeffrey, Legislative Intentions, Legislative Supremacy, and Legal Positivism, 42 San Diego Law Review 493 (2005); See also Sinnot-Amstrong, Walter, Word Meaning in Legal Interpretation, 42 San Diego Law Review 465 (2003), on the various forms of intentionalisation.Google Scholar

52 See Larry Alexander/Saikrishna Prakash: “Is that English that Your're Speaking?”: Why Intention Free Interpretation is an Impossibility, 41 San Diego Law Review 967 (2004), for a comprehensive display of the intentionlist point of view.Google Scholar

53 See supra, note 10, Amstutz/Karavas 18.Google Scholar

54 Legendre, Pierre, “Die Juden interpretieren verrückt”: Gutachten zu einem klassischen Text, Psyche, 43 Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse und ihre Anwendungen 20, 33 (1989).Google Scholar

55 See Goebel, Joachim, Rechtsgespräch und kreativer Dissens: Zugleich ein Beitrag zur Bedeutung der Sprache in der interpretativen Praxis des Zivilprozesses, 74 (2001).Google Scholar

56 In this connection, it is revealing that Engisch, Karl, Einführung in das juristische Denken, 110 (1997), describes the “central issue” of the legal theory of interpretation in the following way: If the content of the law, and therefore also its ultimate “interpretive goal”, are determined and established by the erstwhile and unique “intention” of the historic legislator in such a way that the legal theorist has to retrace the footsteps of the legal historian, can then the factual content of the law rest in itself and its ‘words', as being the, intention of the law', as an objective sense, independent of the, subjective’ meaning and intention of the historic legislator? This is the problem addressed by the so-called “Streit der juristischen Auslegungstheorien”; See also William N. Eskridge, Dynamic Statutory Interpretation, 135 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 1479, 1480 (1987) on the implications for anglo-saxon law.Google Scholar

57 Kramer, Ernst A. 2005: Juristische Methodenlehre, 2nd edition, 109 (2005).Google Scholar

58 See, supra note 55, 52.Google Scholar

59 See Derrida, Jacques, Of Grammatology (1976).Google Scholar

60 Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, 166 N 230 (1993).Google Scholar

61 See, supra, note 59, 44.Google Scholar

62 See, supra, note 55, 53.Google Scholar

63 See, supra, note 59, 62.Google Scholar

64 Derrida, Jacques, Semiology and Grammatology: Interview with Julia Kristeva, in, Positions 15, 33 (Jacques Derrida ed., 1981).Google Scholar

65 Id., 27.Google Scholar

66 Id. Google Scholar

67 When Derrida speaks of the absence of addressees, he means that we never know whether and how what we express is received by others in conversation with them. To turn this around: we can never be sure that the words we direct at persons present actually reach someone who is actually present. Any communication is therefore “suspended” (différée), despite it sometimes not seeming to be so; in other words, it is “deferred” (Jacques Derrida, Différance, in: Margins of Philosophy, 1, 13 et seq (Jacques Derrida, 1982). Even phonetic signs are thus immediately separated from their origin – one could also say from their context. (Jacques Derrida 1982a: Signature Event Context, in, Margins of Philosophy, 307, 317 (Jacques Derrida, 1982)). It is, in itself, a secondary effect that is nothing other than the written sign. This is why conversation to Derrida is – as written text is – a form of écriture or archi-écriture. Google Scholar

83 Derrida, Jacques, Signature Event Context, in Margins of Philosophy 307, 315 (Jacques Derrida, 1982).Google Scholar

84 Id. Google Scholar

85 Id., 317.Google Scholar

86 Derrida, Jacques „Différance, in, Margins of Philosophy 1, 316 (Jacques Derrida, 1982).Google Scholar

87 See supra, note 11, 171.Google Scholar

68 The concept of a text being “open” is – probably unsurprisingly, following the above discussions – not used homogenously in legal reasoning doctrine: See e.g. Alain Papaux, Introduction à la philosophie due “droit en situation”: De la codification légaliste au droit prudentiel, 190 (2006), who speaks of open texture and mainly means that “les notions univoques sont rarissimes” (op cit.: 191). This form of openness of text – or porosity – does not mean the same as the sociological openness of text, which is being discussed here. if we speak of an open legal text, we mean the phenomenon of written law as a gateway for “importing” social norms into Law, where these norms are then made into legal decisions in a morphogenetic process. This will be discussed in more detail below.Google Scholar

69 See supra, note 64, 27 et. seq‥Google Scholar

70 Luhmann, Niklas, Verfassung als evolutionäre Errungenschaft, 9 Rechtshistorisches Journal 184, 206 (1990).Google Scholar

71 Id., 206.Google Scholar

72 Apart from this, a nationalization procedure was provided for in the acts regulating corporations and cooperatives: Art. 715 and 915 aOR.Google Scholar

73 See BGE 87 I 301 (conversion of a cooperative into an association without prior liquidation); BGE 115 II 415 (merger of foundations); BGE 125 III 18 (conversion of a limited liability company into a corporation without liquidation); See Weibel, Thomas, Art. 1, in Zürcher Kommentar zum Fusionsgesetz: Kommentar zum Bundesgesetz über Fusion Spaltung, Umwandlung und Vermögensübertragung (Fusionsgesetz, FusG) vom 3 (Frank Vischer et al. eds., 2004). Also see Oktober 2003 sowie zu den ergänzenden Erlassen (IPR, Steuerrecht), Art. 1 N 11 et seq for details on the Commercial Registry practice regarding company conversions.Google Scholar

74 These trial and error processes can be re-modelled using Piaget's equilibration theory (Jean Piaget, Six études de psychologie 134 (1964)); this in the sense of Manfred Aschke, Kommunikation, Koordination und soziales System: Theoretische Grundlagen für die Erklärung der Evolution von Kultur und Gesellschaft 196 (2006), who transformed and made this psychological theory fruitful in the context of systems theory and legal sociology.Google Scholar

75 Foerster, Heinz V., Wissen und Gewissen: Versuch einer Brücke, 282 (1993).Google Scholar

76 See Amstutz, Marc, Interpretatio multiplex: Zur Europäisierung des schweizerischen Privatrechts im Spiegel von BGE 129 III 335, in Privatrecht und Methode: Festschrift für Ernst A. Kramer 67, 79 (Heinrich Honsell et al. eds., 2004).Google Scholar

77 See Glensy, Rex D., Quasi-Global Social Norms, 38 Connecticut Law Review 81, 83 (2005), for more on the definition of social norms. Google Scholar

78 Morphogenesis is the doctrine of form building: See the overview in Annick Lesne/Paul Bourgine, Introduction, in Morphogenèse: L'origine des Formes 13 (Annick Lesne/Paul Bourgine eds., 2006).Google Scholar

79 See, supra, note 4, 88.Google Scholar

80 Supra, note 11, 24 seems to suggest exactly this, in a dark formula, which awakes tremendous associations: “[…] la fonction propre du droit comme système social, c'est-à-dire comme système de représentation politique de la société pour elle-měme”. Google Scholar

81 BGE 120 II 331, 335.Google Scholar

82 See e.g. Meier-Hayoz, Arthur: Art. 1 ZGB, in Berner Kommentar: Kommentar zum schweizerischen Zivilrecht, Bd. I: Einleitung und Personenrecht, Teilbd. 1: Einleitung: Artikel 1–10 ZGB, Art.1 N 136 (Hermann Becker ed., 1962).Google Scholar

83 See contributions and reports of discussion in Uwe Diederichsen/Wolfgang Sellert, Das BGB im Wandel der Epochen: 10. Symposion der Kommission “Die Funktion des Gesetzes in Geschichte und Gegenwart” (2002).Google Scholar

84 See e.g. Kramer, Ernst A., Juristische Methodenlehre, 2. Auflage, 338 (2005).Google Scholar

85 See, supra, note 15, 305.Google Scholar

86 I refer to Franz Bydlinksi, Juristische Methodenlehre und Rechtsbegriff, 2. Auflage (1991), merely as an (naturally symptomatic) example, who dedicated 10 out of 652 pages (pgs. 417 – 427) of his book on legal reasoning to the issue of facts. A remark on the side: this particular example shows very nicely how little importance is accredited to society in conventional legal reasoning doctrine.Google Scholar

87 See Pierre Moor: Pour une théorie micropolitique du droit, (2005), 87 et seq: “Ce qui pourtant est le problème essentiel a ainsi été abandonné au bord de la route: celui de la production concrète du droit et de ses méthodes. Autrement dit, et en prenant le terme de méthode au pied de la lettre: si, à partir des faits, le chemin y retourne, en passant (mais en passant seulement) par la norme, que signifie ce passage?”.Google Scholar

88 See e.g. MacCormick, Neil, Argumentation und Interpretation im Recht: “Rule Consequentialism” und rationale Rekonstruktion, in, Entscheidungsfolgen als Rechtsgründe: Folgenorientiertes Argumentieren in rechtsvergleichender Sicht, 39 (Gunther Teubner ed., 1995).Google Scholar

89 Bierling, Ernst Rudolf, Juristische Prinzipienlehre, 47 (1961).Google Scholar

90 BGE 115 II 464, 465.Google Scholar

91 See Marc Amstutz/Andreas Abegg/Vaios Karavas, Soziales Vertragsrecht: Eine evolutorische Studie, 32 (2006).Google Scholar

92 Carbonnier, Jean, Flexible Droit: Pour une sociologie du droit sans rigueur (2001); also, see Pierre Moor, Pour une théorie micropolitique du droit, 49 (2001).Google Scholar

93 See also Luhmann, Niklas, Ausdifferenzierung des Rechts: Beiträge zur Rechtssoziologie und Rechtstheorie, 315 (1981) (every legal system is and remains dependent on a transfer of social values into legal relevancies).Google Scholar

94 In more detail, Amstutz, Marc, Hic sunt leones: Von kollektiver Marktbeherrschung und symbolischer Gesetzgebung im Coop/Waro-Entscheid der Wettbewerbskommission, in 9 sic! 673, 681 (2003).Google Scholar

95 See inter alia Amstutz, Marc, Historizismus im Wirtschaftsrecht: Überlegungen zu einer evolutorischen Rechtsmethodik, in, Festschrift für Jean Nicolas Druey, 9 (Rainer J. Schweizer et al. eds., 2002), on the concept of evolutionary legal interpretation; See also William N. Eskridge, Dynamic Statutory Interpretation, 135 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 1479 (1987), who proposed a model of dynamic statute interpretation for the common law system.Google Scholar