Standing on the Threshold of Law: Toward a Constitutive Methodology in Light of the Interdependence of Law and Politics

Bayat Komitaki, Mahnaz; Soltani, Seyed Naser; Dehnavi, Ebrahim

doi:10.22091/cpl.2026.15068.1091

Standing on the Threshold of Law: Toward a Constitutive Methodology in Light of the Interdependence of Law and Politics

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ Assistant Professor, Department of Public Law, Faculty of Law, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran.

² Associate Professor of Public Law, Faculty of Law and Political Science, Farabi College, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

³ . PhD Candidate in Public Law, Faculty of Law, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran.

10.22091/cpl.2026.15068.1091

Abstract

The contemporary crisis of law extends beyond the mere violation of legal norms; it possesses an ontological character that may be described as the "suspension of the horizon of normativity." In such a condition, law loses its capacity to function as an instrument for ordering collective life and sustaining the structure of the state. Adopting a critical approach, this study argues that the dominant methodologies of legal scholarshiplegal positivism, normativism, and interpretivismare ineffective in confronting this threshold condition because they are grounded in the presupposition of the stability of legal order. Consequently, they either overlook the vital actions necessary for the preservation of order or relegate them to the sphere of naked force. To overcome this impasse, the article formulates the concept of the "constituent act of law." Under conditions of suspended order, such an act arises not primarily from the text of positive law but from the concrete situation itself. Through the "interpretation of the foundation" and the reconstruction of political unity, it enables the re-emergence of legal normativity. Finally, by introducing a "constitutive methodology," the article proposes a framework in which the jurist transcends legal formalism and assumes an ontological responsibility for safeguarding the conditions of possibility of law. In this capacity, the jurist acts as a constitutive subject, preventing the disintegration of the institutional order.

Highlights

سلطانی، سید ناصر و احمدی، کاظم (۱۴۰۳). «مقامِ حاکم در وضعیتِ استثنایی؛ نظریه دیکتاتوری اشمیت». مجله حقوق عمومی تطبیقی، دوره ۱، شماره ۴.

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In Persian

Soltani, Seyed Naser, and Ahmadi, Kazem (2024). “The Sovereign’s Position in the State of Exception; Schmitt’s Theory of Dictatorship.” Journal of Comparative Public Law, Vol. 1, No. 4, pp. 100-123.

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