The Rule of the Courts

Francisco Balaguer Callejón

interpretation of law beyond the limits of its mechanical application. This extends from the invisible and null power, whose function is merely to pronounce the words of the law, as we have already seen in Montesquieu 16 , to the consideration of the judge as a slave to the law in the opinion of the Court of Lyon on the Napoleonic Code 17 . Let us recall here C. Beccaria’s famous thesis of the syllogism: “In every crime, the judge must make a perfect syllogism (...) When the judge, by force or will, wants to make more than one syllogism, the door to uncertainty is opened” 18 . It is in this context that we must place the référé législatif , incorporated into the law of August 16-24, 1790, which established in its Title II, Article 12, that the courts “ne pourront point faire de règlements, mais ils s’adresseront au Corps législatif toutes les fois qu’ils croiront nécessaire, soit d’interpréter une loi, soit d’en faire une nouvelle” 19 . Certainly, this subordinate position of the courts was not unrelated to the distrust they aroused regarding their commitment to the revolution 20 . d’interprétation et sources en droit privé positif , tomo I, 1899, second edition (1919), Librairie Générale de Droit & de Jurisprudence, Paris 1954, p. 23. 16 V. supra , footnote 1. 17 Cf. A. Ross, Theorie der Rechtsquellen. Ein Beitrag zur Theorie des positiven Rechts auf Grundlage dogmenhistorischer Untersuchungen , Franz Deuticke, Leipzig and Wien, 1929. p. 35. 18 C. Beccaria, Dei delitti e delle pene , 1764, Spanish version, Alianza Editorial, Madrid 1982, p. 31. 19 Cf. Y.L Hufteau, Le référé législatif et les pouvoirs du juge dans le silence de la loi , Presses Universitaires de France, Paris 1965. 20 In any case, it should be noted that the struggle between the courts and political power dates to the absolutist period in France. At that time, the institution of the ‘référé’ was already in place, obliging judges to consult the monarch in cases where they had doubts about the application of royal law. This mechanism was established in 1667 by a royal ordinance which stated that “Si dans le jugements des procès qui seront pendants en nos cours, il survient aucun doute ou difficulté sur l’exécution de nos Ordonnances, Édits, Déclarations et Lettres patentes, Nous leur défendons de les interpréter, mais voulons qu’en ce cas elles ayent à se retirer par-devers Nous, pour apprendre ce qui sera de notre intention”, citada en Hufteau, Y.L., op. cit. , p. 10. As this author indicates, during the absolutist period the monarch had two mechanisms to protect his legislative activity from the courts: one preventive, the référé, and the other repressive, the cassation of the Parlements ’ judgments. The struggle between political power and the courts continued after the Revolution, given

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