THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE SCHOOL OF NATURAL LAW AND KELSEN’S NORMATIVE SCHOOL OF LAW

Abstract

The School of natural law and Kelsen’s normative theory of law have taken an important place in the whole history of theory of law. However, the School of natural law has lasted since the 5th century B. C., and Kelsen’s normative theory has lasted for more than a half a century (since the forties of the last century).

The main characteristic of the School of natural law is in the fact that it finds its source in a human’s mind as a natural substance whose characteristics are basic and universal human’s rights such as the right of life, the right of freedom, the right of human’s dignity as well as the right of property and people’s equality by birth.

But, Kelsen’s normative theory finds the source of the whole law in a prenorm, i. e. a metaphysical norm by which there are defined both the human’s very nature and the essence of the state itself.

However, both the School of natural law and Kelsen’s normative theory, each in its own way, pointed at certain imperfection of positive law which was mainly based on interest-political basis. It is known that natural law interprets the concept of law in an intellectual-rational and natural way without interest-political and ideological elements. On the other side, Kelsen’s normative theory keeps and protects law from ideological-political influence through the closed system of pure law based on the pre-norm and having no support in a natural and social reality.