Maciej Zieliński’s conception of legal interpretation

Abstract

The collection of interpretative functions used at three stages of interpretation (the ordering phase, the restructuring phase and the perceptive phase) create a normative conception of the interpretation of law which in its primary form was first presented by Maciej Zieliński in 1969. It was later described fully by the same author in his monograph Wykładnia prawa. Zasady, reguły, wskazówki published in 2002. Under this conception it is assumed that interpretation is always done omnia sunt interpretanda and that the text of a legislative act is ways of expressing norms in legal provisions, which requires their reconstruction (syntax-wise, logic-wise and content-wise) and subsequent equivalencing meaning-wise. The result of the activities undertaken by the legislator, after the linguistic, systemic and functional directives have been applied in accordance with the principle of interpretatio cessat post applicationem trium typorum directionae – a legal norm understood as a complete (syntax-, content- and logic-wise) expression sufficiently unambiguous at the given interpretative moment.