CLT Seminar and Roundtable by Professor David Duarte, University of Lisbon

At the seminar, Professor David Duarte discussed the recent Alexy-Ratti debate, which holds significant theoretical importance due to its challenging exchange of arguments and the critical legal issues it addresses. The debate centered on key concepts such as proportionality, balancing, and conflicts of norms, which have become vital in the work of constitutional courts.

Professor Duarte explained how Alexy’s principles theory aims to provide an explanation for these concepts, yet pointed out that this theory seems to encounter insurmountable problems and lacks the necessary explanatory power. As a result, he argued that an alternative view is required. In addition to engaging with the debate, Professor Duarte presented an explanation of how balancing can resolve conflicts of norms that cannot be addressed by traditional norms of conflict, and how the German model of proportionality regulates the operations of norm priority.

At the roundtable, Professor David Duarte explored the nature of legal reasoning, which is often regarded as a specialist skill acquired by lawyers and essential to understanding law as a discipline. The discussion centered on whether legal reasoning must have a scientific character for law to be taken seriously as an academic field. Professor Duarte raised questions about the specific nature of this scientific character, if it exists. Alternatively, the seminar considered a more skeptical view on the scientific quality of legal reasoning and how law can still maintain its credibility as a discipline in the absence of a clear scientific foundation.