The Statutes
The starting point of the interpretation is always the wording of the statute. The setting is the same as, for instance, in the interpretation of a last will, in which the text is in a key position.
Jerzy Wroblewski presented a noteworthy distinction as regards the literal interpretation (Wroblewski 1991, 260, 1983, 311). He characterised the literal meaning using following qualities:1. Clear or plain meaning. Here the matter is not actually about interpretation but more on the redundancy of interpretation.
2. Lexical meaning. It is the meaning found in the general semantics of language. This meaning becomes evident in the normal linguistic practice, or it can be found in dictionaries.
3. Grammatical meaning. This concerns the syntax of the language at issue.
The linguistic argument is already necessary due to language itself. We understand language through its ordinary meanings in circumstances in which we have learned to play language-games and still play them. Therefore, language-games of ordinary language are a natural starting point for us, and the game that contests them resides on the meta level. It is not a game played in (ordinary) language. On the other hand, where the statute is unclear in one way or another, the reference to the wording of the statute is an argumentum absurdum.
The so-called Bielefelder Kreis found references to the wording of ordinary language primary in all compared legal orders. According to this comparison, the linguistic dimension is not the only reason why the literal meaning has such strong weight. Neil MacCormick pointed out that this is just a necessary part of respecting authority. If someone in authority issues a norm of some kind, necessarily using some language or other to do so, one does not respect that authority unless one reads the norm text in the language and register in which it is issued (MacCormick 1991, 382).
MacCormick adds that the power of the linguistic argument is also in that the citizens of a Constitutional State should, at least in principle, be capable of reading their rights and obligations from the law. They should become evident to the people directly from the legal texts. Even though this demand is impossible in practice, it expresses an important democratic principle. The wording of the statute as a starting point thus receives support from the founding values of democracy and the Constitutional State.
The statutes provide information on the legal order - that is, the mass of legal norms, whether the norms are, for instance, regulative or constitutive. As was stated above, law is always a system. It is a general whole formed by means of conceptual commitments, easy to use and efficient in terms of intellectual economy. The system locks down the structures that define the decision-related possibilities that can be used in different situations. If the boundaries of the system are breached, the decision does not correspond to valid law.
Non-national Sources of Law
In the countries belonging to the European Union, certain norms external to national law are strongly binding. The binding force of the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and the European Court of Justice (ECJ) does not depend on the loyalty of, for instance, Finnish instances in following them. Examples can be sought from the principle of primacy of EU law and the minimum requirements of a fair trial. The decisions of the ECJ and the Court of First Instance are strongly binding in principle. They have a so-called erga omnes-effect. In summation, a source-related “metanorm” concerning this legal source would be written as follows: A norm which is external to national law should be unconditionally followed in all circumstances.
However, one reservation concerns all legal norms, even those that are strongly binding. The norm is binding, assuming that it can be applied in the first place to the case at hand.
Applicability can be excluded primarily by stating that there is no sufficient analogy between the decided case and the case being decided. This fact does not prevent us saying that the source is strongly binding in the aforementioned sense.The EU dimension includes problems of another type. The ECJ has no means of executing its decisions in the Member States. This is the responsibility of the national authorities, and because of this, the decisions of the ECJ have to be accepted by the national courts in order to be effective. Sometimes this succeeds and sometimes it does not.
The car taxation decision (Nunes Tadeu) did not have a direct effect on Finnish taxation practice. The precedent wasn't seen as generally binding in Finland. It was only a decision concerning Finland (C-101/00 Siilin (2002) ECR I-7487) that started the repairs to the discriminatory elements in Finnish car taxation. In this sense, the binding force of the decisions given by the ECJ can be seen as de facto conditional. If criteria X are fulfilled, the norm N external to national law has to be applied.
In any case, sources external to national law demand that the aforementioned category of sources of law that are strongly binding is augmented. In this contribution, the EU law and the human rights commitments have been placed at the top of the scale of binding force.
There is no special difficulty in placing new sources in the three categories of binding force. As was mentioned above, the matter concerns sources of law that are problem and situation-specific. When categorising the binding force in a Peczenikian way, the weight given to a specific source, such as a precedent of the ECJ, is not essential in an individual decision-making situation.
Other strictly binding sources, like the statutes and national custom, can be overruled in terms of their binding force. They can be bypassed if there are special grounds for doing so. This is the case, for instance, as far as contra legem decisions are concerned. These cases are left out of this study.