LEGAL CERTAINTY AND ITS CURRENT PARADOX

Abstract

Th is paper analyses the changes taking place in the meaning and function of legal certainty in contemporary legal systems. Th is transformation has manifested through a series of paradoxical mutations that show the diff erences between the current concept of legal certainty and passed versions. In order to show and analyse this paradoxical character, referred to the main guarantees associated to legal certainty, this essay focuses on its impact upon the following requisites: the necessary publicity of legal rules that enable its access by their addresses (lex promulgata); the requirement of clarity and accuracy in legal drafting (lex manifesta); the absence of normative gaps (lex plena); respect to legal hierarchy and matters to be exclusively regulated by legislative norms (lex stricta); the principle of non-retroactivity of unfavourable regulations or rules which restrict individual rights (lex previa); and the adequate stability and persistence of Law (lex perpetua).