When Metaphors become Law
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| Year of publication | 2017 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | There is a rather peculiar practice in using the case law in the Czech Republic. The case-law records (the various "Collections of judicial decisions") usually publish chosen deicisions with a so called "legal sentence" at their beginning. The thinking behind it is to provide some sort of shortcut, something that would give the reader a better idea of what kind of interpretation appears in the rationale of this particular decision. This practice is peculiar because of the consequences: the courts and lawyers usually only refer to whatever appears in this legal sentence, not to the bulk of reasoning of the case as a whole. Based on one particular instance of this legal sentence that not only contains a specific interpretation, but also a direct reference to a sentence taken out of doctrinal writing that contains a metaphor, this paper looks into the issue of possible normativity of images drawn by these types of rhetorical devices and discuss possible risks and consequences. |
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