LOS ENREDOS DE LA VALIDEZ: TRES DISTINCIONES PARA NO PERDERSE

Abstract

The aim of this work is to give the reader basic conceptual tools with which to approach the whole problem of legal validity. Taking as our starting point the main notions of validity as used by theorists and lawyers, and after putting them in order, we show where they are complementary and where in opposition. We then go on to see how the holding of different points of view regarding the nature of Law conditions the endorsement of a particular view of
legal validity.
Three distinctions are examined, each of which contrasts two pairs of concepts. We have the distinction between existence and normative validity; between regulatory and constituent validity; and between formal and material validity. These three distinctions allow us to approach the problem of legal validity in a graded fashion, from a higher level of abstraction to a lower: the notions of existence and normative validity being the broadest and most abstract concepts, presupposed more or less implicitly in the other notions. The notions of regulatory and constituent validity are concrete forms of normative validity. Finally, the concepts of formal validity and material validity appear as two fundamental dimensions of regulatory validity.