medium · MCAT cars

Passage: Gustav Radbruch, a German legal scholar who witnessed the rise and fall of the Third Reich, famously revised his positivist views in what became known as the 'Radbruch Formula.' He argued that while legal certainty—the idea that law must be followed as written—is a vital goal, there is a threshold of injustice beyond which a law loses its 'legal character.' When a law deliberately denies the equality that constitutes the core of justice, it is 'statutory non-law.' Radbruch did not demand that every minor injustice invalidate a law, but rather that extreme, 'unbearable' injustice should override the requirement of legal certainty. This formula was instrumental in the trials of Nazi officials who used the defense that they were merely 'following the law.' It suggests that the 'is' of the law cannot be entirely insulated from the 'ought' of fundamental justice when the stakes are existential. Radbruch's Formula serves as a bridge between positivism and natural law by:

1. Prioritizing substantive justice over legal certainty only in cases of extreme inhumanity.
2. Reaffirming that 'statutory law' is always superior to 'moral law' regardless of content.
3. Proving that all laws must be grounded in religious doctrine to be valid.
4. Abolishing the need for legal certainty in modern democratic societies.

Sign up free to see the explanation and track your rank →