Gustav Radbruch (November 21, 1878 - November 23, 1949) was a German law professor and political figure. Events 164 BC - Judas Maccabaeus, son of Mattathias of the Hasmonean family restores the Temple in Jerusalem. Year 1878 ( MDCCCLXXVIII) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Events 800 - Charlemagne arrives at Rome to investigate the alleged crimes of Year 1949 ( MCMXLIX) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. Law is a system of rules enforced through a set of Institutions used as an instrument to underpin civil obedience politics economics and society
Life
Born at Lübeck, Radbruch studied law in Munich, Leipzig and Berlin. Lübeck ( is the second largest City in Schleswig-Holstein, in Northern Germany, and one of the major The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München also known as LMU, is a University in Munich and with more The University of Leipzig (Universität Leipzig located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities He passed his first bar exam ("Staatsexamen") in Berlin in 1901, and the following year he received his doctorate with a dissertation on "The Theory of adequate Causation. The de Staatsexamen is a German Government licensing examination that future Doctors Teachers Lawyers Judges Public " This was followed in 1903 by his qualification to teach criminal law in Heidelberg. In 1904, he was appointed Professor of Criminal and Trial Law and Legal Philosophy in Heidelberg. In 1914 he accepted a call to a professorship in Königsberg, and in 1914 he accepted one at Kiel. The University of Königsberg (Albertus-Universität Königsberg was the University of Königsberg, East Prussia. The University of Kiel ( German Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, CAU) is a University in the city of Kiel, Germany
Radbruch was a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), and held a seat in the Reichstag from 1920 to 1924. The Reichstag ( German for "Imperial Diet " was the Parliament of the Holy Roman Empire, the North German Confederation, In 1921-22 and throughout 1923, he was Justice Minister in the cabinets of Joseph Wirth and Gustav Stresemann. Karl Joseph Wirth, known as Joseph Wirth, ( 6 September 1879 &ndash 3 January 1956) was a German Politician ( May 10, 1878 &ndash October 3, 1929) was a German liberal politician and statesman who served as Chancellor and Foreign Minister During his time in office, a number of important laws were implemented, such as those giving women access to the justice system, and, after the assassination of Walter Rathenau, the Law for the Protection of the Republic. Walther Rathenau ( September 29, 1867 – June 24, 1922) was a German industrialist politician writer and statesman who served as
In 1926, Radbruch accepted a renewed call to lecture at Heidelberg. The Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg ( University of Heidelberg, Ruperto Carola, Heidelberg University, or simply Heidelberg) is a After the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, Radbruch was dismissed from his civil service post, as the universities were public entities. During the Nazi period, he devoted himself primarily to cultural-historical work. Immediately after the end of the Second World War in 1945, he resumed his teaching activities, but died at Heidelberg in 1949 without being able to complete his planned updated edition of his textbook on legal philosophy. World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including
Work
Radbruch's legal philosophy derived from Neokantianism, which assumes that a categorical cleavage exists between "is" (Sein) and "ought" (Sollen). Neo-Kantianism means a revived or modified type of Philosophy along the lines of that laid down by Immanuel Kant in the Eighteenth century or (sometimes In Meta-ethics, the is-ought problem was raised by David Hume ( Scottish Philosopher and Historian, 1711 &ndash According to this view, "Should" can never be derived from "Being. " Indicative of the Heidelberg school of Neokantianism to which Radbruch subscribed was that it interpolated the value-related cultural studies between the explanatory sciences (Being) and philosophical teachings of values (Should).
In relation to the law, this triadism shows itself in the subfields of legal sociology, legal philosophy and legal dogma. Legal dogma assumes a place in between. It posits itself in opposition to positive law, as the latter depicts itself in social reality and methodologically in the objective "should-have" sense of law, which reveals itself through value-related interpretation.
The core of Radbruch's legal philosophy consists of his tenets the concept of law and the idea of law. The idea of law is defined through a triad of justice, utility and security. Radbruch thereby had the idea of utility or usefuleness spring forth from an analysis of the idea of justice. Upon this notion was based the Radsbrucian formula, which is still vigorously debated today. The concept of law, for Radbruch, is "nothing other than the given fact, which has the sense to serve the idea of law. "
Hotly disputed is the question whether Radbruch was a legal positivist before 1933 and executed an about-face in his thinking due to the advent of Nazism, or whether he continued to develop, under the impression of Nazi crimes, the relativistic values-teaching he had already been advocating before 1933.
The problem of the controversy between the spirit and the letter of the law, in Germany, has been brought back to public attention due to the trials of former East German soldiers who guarded the Berlin Wall--the so-called necessity of following orders. Radbruch's theories are posited against the positivist "pure legal tenets" represented by Hans Kelsen and, to some extent, also from Georg Jellinek. Hans Kelsen ( October 11, 1881 – April 19, 1973) was an Austrian American Jurist. Georg Jellinek ( June 16, 1851, Leipzig – January 12, 1911, Heidelberg) was a German legal philosopher
In sum, Radbruch's formula argues that where statutory law is incompatible with the requirements of justice "to an intolerable degree", or where statutory law was obviously designed in a way that deliberately negates "the equality that is the core of all justice", statutory law must be disregarded by a judge in favour of the justice principle. Statutory law or statute law is written Law (as opposed to oral or Customary law) set down by a Legislature or other governing JUSTICE is a Human rights and law reform organisation based in the United Kingdom. Since its first publication in 1946 the principle has been accepted by Germany's Federal Constitutional Court in a variety of cases. Year 1946 ( MCMXLVI) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full 1946 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Many people partially blame the older German legal tradition of legal positivism for the ease with which Hitler obtain power in an outwardly "legal" manner, rather than by means of a coup. Legal positivism is a school of thought in Jurisprudence and the Philosophy of law. Arguably, the shift to a concept of natural law ought to act as a safeguard against dictatorship, an untrammeled State power and the abrogation of civil rights. Natural law or the law of nature ( Latin: lex naturalis) is a theory that posits the existence of a law whose content is set by Nature and that