The specificity of law in the thought of Villey, Cotta and Hervada. Relevance for juridical science

Abstract

From the perspectve of Villey’s, Cotta’s and Hervada’s thought, the author analyzes the relation between right and justice in Italian juridical order, finding within that order a precise hierarchy. On the top of this hierarchy he finds the principles of legal protection of the person, recognized and guaranteed by the Constitution, through the filter of subsequent values, such as solidarity — themselves, in turn, leading to a moral domain superior to the legal one. The just is still that which is due to each person as an inviolable right, i.e., as a right that the positive law cannot violate, while the fundamental task of the interpreter — as rightfully intuited by Villey, Cotta and Hervada — is to order the formation of the effective law toward justice, aware that the law constitutes an instrument for the construction of a just society.