The Complementary Function of the Principles of Law in Relation to the Positive Law

Abstract

Principles of law are the ideal of law pursued by the legislator in the activity of creating law. They express man’s highest aspirations: freedom, equality and justice. The question of the principles of law carries with it a real burden of meaning. It raises great questions, with still unexpected answers (Humă, 2011, p. 103). Principles of law are a subject of maximum resonance in legal thought, but also of maximum resistance to relative contingencies and legal positivism. The renaissance of natural law is at the same time a renaissance of the principles of law housed in human nature (consciousness). The individual conscience, especially the legal conscience, is the ‘repository’ and ‘shield’ of the inherent principles in the human being, principles which must assert their presence in any positive law: freedom, responsibility, equality, justice, unity, etc. The principles of law determine the existence of the material legal reality as premises of the positive legal order. The principles of law are strongly present in the legal-action framework: in the processes of elaboration and realisation of the law. The principles of the law contribute to the completion of the incomplete positive law in the analogia iuris process.