Santi Romano e l’interpretazione giuridica. Appunti per una riflessione sul “metodo” nel diritto pubblico

The essay contends the following points: 1) in spite of its openness toward meta-normativity,
institutionalism does not imply legal realism; 2) institutionalism does imply a specific theory of the
sources of law, in which “involuntary law” has a prominent role; 3) as connected as it may be with
interpretation, the theory of the sources of law can be thought of independently from it and, it should
be from an analytical point of view; 4) the institutionalist theory of the sources of law leaves some
difficulties unsolved, especially concerning the way the theory deals with its own verification and with
the valuation of epistemic processes of “discovering” and “creation”.
The conclusion is that it is possible to be institutionalist, without giving up a legal and linguistic
rigorous account of the process of interpretation, only if it is possible to define which are the other
source of law one should refer to unveil relevant legal meanings and with which methods one is
expected to approach them.