The role of the judiciary: Interpreting vs creating law-or how Hans Kelsen justified “judicial activism”

Abstract

Hans Kelsen was not only a legal theorist but also worked as a constitutional judge in the First Austrian Republic between 1919 and 1930. Faced with increasing political criticism due to its “activism”, Kelsen radicalized his theory of law-application. He emphasized that judicial work generates law (i.e., it is genuinely political) and that a judge can also create new law outside the framework of possible norm meanings. In this way, he was able to refute political calls for the “depoliticization” of constitutional jurisdiction. In the paper, I present why the Austrian Constitutional Court was accused of “activism” and how Kelsen responded to it. The sociological question of how the judiciary exercises political power and how this power is perceived by politics is addressed in the paper with a focus on legal history, specifically regarding the Austrian Constitutional Court during the interwar period.