Miklós Könczöl

Arguments from fairness as described in Aristotle’s Rhetoric are usually taken to aim at mitigating the strictness of the law or, in terms of procedure, to favour the defendant. This paper considers a more inclusive interpretation, that is, that arguments from fairness can work both ways. In the example given in the Rhetoric, arguments from fairness are directed at a restrictive interpretation of the text. That may not be necessary however. Likewise, fairness may speak for the claimant. Two examples may support this conclusion: a judicial speech by Hyperides, and the doctrine of issues appearing in Hellenistic school rhetoric. Les arguments construits à partir du principe d’équité tels que décrits dans la Rhétorique d’Aristote sont généralement considérés comme visant à atténuer la rigueur de la loi ou, en termes de procédure, à favoriser le défendeur. Cet article adopte une interprétation plus inclusive, à savoir que les arguments fondés sur l’équité peuvent fonctionner dans les deux sens. Dans l’exemple donné dans la Rhétorique, les arguments d’équité visent une interprétation restrictive du texte. Cela n’est peut-être cependant pas nécessaire. De même, l’équité peut parler en faveur du demandeur. Deux exemples peuvent étayer cette conclusion : un discours judiciaire d’Hypéride et la doctrine des enjeux apparaissant dans la rhétorique scolaire hellénistique.

The paper discusses the concepts of culture and identity within the context of the Fundamental Law of Hungary. The first part focuses on the relationship between the state and culture, both from a conceptual and an ideological point of view. The second part examines how references to culture and identity appear in the Fundamental Law. It is argued that by juxtaposing the two terms in Article R, the Fundamental Law seeks to broaden the meaning of constitutional identity, to include a historical-cultural dimension, and make it a rhetorical topic useful for the construction of exclusivist arguments.

This paper examines the ways the two fundamental problems regarding the rights of future persons/generations (the non-existence problem and the non-identity problem) are usually tackled in scholarship. It is argued that while rights cannot be properly attributed to future people, rights in respect to future generations can be based on present persons’ identity.

This chapter focuses on the semiotic aspects of classical judicial rhetoric. Taking Aristotle’s Rhetoric, a key text for the study of the field as its starting point, it takes a closer look at the core elements of invention and style, respectively, from a semiotic perspective. In particular, the discussion highlights insights related to the pragmatic level of legal debates, drawing on the work of B. S. Jackson in the field of (Greimassian) legal semiotics. The question of ‘equity’ (epieikeia) serves as an example to illustrate the meaning-making functions of rhetorical devices. It is shown that the topics of judicial rhetoric as well as stylistic devices work towards persuasion through narratives, which establish intimate links between argument (logos) and character (ēthos).

The comparative approach to constitutional interpretation and reasoning has seen considerable developments over the last decade. While earlier comparative studies within the field mostly focused on concepts and institutions, and generally adopted a normative perspective, the launching of the CONREASON project (cf. Jakab, Dyevre & Itzcovich, eds., 2017) in 2011 has been an important step towards a both more descriptive and methodologically better founded examination of constitutional argumentation. The project has since found several followers (see Kelemen, 2019, n. 1, for references), including those focusing on specific regions (CORE Latam, cf. Fröhlich, 2020, and Nordic CONREASON). This volume is a further addition to this growing body of scholarship. The main question of the comparative study presented here is whether there are any specificities in the reasoning and constitutional interpretation of Central and Eastern European constitutional courts. The reader finds many valuable insights and lessons on the way to an essentially negative answer. The structure of the volume is far from being intricate: a substantial introductory chapter (by Zoltán J. Tóth) is followed by country studies analysing samples of judgments from the Slovenian (Benjamin Flander), Hungarian (Adél Köblös), Czech (David Sehnálek), Slovak (Katarína Šmigová), Serbian (Slobodan Orlović) and Polish (Piotr Mostowik) constitutional courts. The selection criteria are explained in the introduction: the authors of each study have selected thirty judgments dealing with fundamental rights issues from the period 2011-2020, which contain references to the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). The authors take stock of the interpretive methods used by the respective courts and identify the types of arguments used in the reasoning of the judgments, as well as the weight attributed to single types. As a next step, they do the same with the ECtHR and CJEU judgments cited. That makes it possible to characterise the jurisprudence of national constitutional courts, and also to compare it with that of the European courts, albeit with certain limitations. Most of the limits have, of course, been taken into account by the researchers, and the analytical methods have been adapted to these to some extent. One example is the choice of cases: the judgments delivered in the five-year period (2016-2020) initially envisaged did not contain a sufficient number of references to European case law, and it was therefore necessary to consider the courts' jurisprudence over a longer period. Another

This paper discusses the promises and limits of a Peircean semiotic approach to the concept of style in law. It does so in two steps: first (1) by identifying the place of style within the structure of law as a system of signs, then (2) by conceptualising the link between law and style in the thought of C.S. Peirce and highlighting some of the insights from a Peircean take on legal semiotics that may contribute to our understanding of the role of style in making meaning in law. It is argued that, for a Peircean analysis of law, three levels can be distinguished, from the ‘surface structure’ down to the ‘deep structure’. It is at the middle level (that of the ‘basic structure’) that a semiotic approach can yield coherent insights in terms of style, by examining the symbols and metaphors that make for the expressibility of ‘habits’, namely experience-based patterns of action and interpretation.

The paper examines legal historians’ discourses concerning the interpretation of Roman legal sources. It does so by analysing two examples of scholarly debates: one on the use of Roman law as an atemporal legal doctrine, and one in which Roman law appears as a historical manifestation of natural law. The focus is on the different uses of the concept of ‘ideology’ and the possible roles of Roman law in legal education. It is argued that the concept of identity can meaningfully contribute to our understanding of these debates as well as to the study of Roman law in general.