Lacune e interpretazione giuridica in Normative systems

Among the many contributions of Normative Systems to legal theory, one of most remarkable concerns the concepts of legal gaps. In this essay, I will briefly expose the reformulations of “legal gaps” provided by Alchourrón and Bulygin, highlighting their merits, and, then, I will raise some criticisms against such notions. My main thesis is that Alchourrón and Bulygin’s syntactic approach and their dealing with momentary systems lead them to overlook the fundamental role that legal interpretation plays in identifying legal gaps. In particular, I will try to show: that Alchourrón and Bulygin’s view on legal interpretation produces some counterintuitive consequences; that, once one takes seriously the role of legal interpretation plays in identifying legal gaps, this role is inconsistent with the notion of axiological gap; and, finally, that, contrary to what the authors maintain, there are close relationships between normative gaps and gaps of recognition. In summary, in contemporary legal systems, logical, axiological and semantic problems are closely related and legal interpretation is a constant bridge between them.