The Debate between the Methodological Positivism of H.L.A. Hart and the Iusnaturalism of Ronald Dworkin and its Reflection in Spanish Civil Law. Relational justice at the crossroads

Abstract

Ronald Dworkin and H.L.A. Hart have held a long running debate on the foundations of law that half a century after its beginning, is still open among their followers. On the one hand, the sufficiency of law is proclaimed, on the other, the need for it to be justified by higher principles. This debate is of particular interest in the age of relativism, in which human beings are looking for answers to the questions that underpin the civilisation. In Spanish Law, and especially in Civil Law, a parallel controversy has developed simultaneously between two different ways of understanding Law, one based on the principle of legal certainty and the other on the supremacy of justice through general clauses. It is also an open debate, although both in the sphere of Common Law and in Spanish Law, positivism and legal certainty prevail over the notion of justice. Given the impossibility of closing these debates, this work ends with a proposal to seek alternative ways of guiding the application of the Law on the path towards justice.