PRAVNI ZAPISI • Year XV • No. 2 • pp. 480–499

THE ROLE OF DILEMMAS IN LAW

Sara Azevedo
Guest Lecturer, University of Lisbon,
Lisbon Public Law Research Centre, Member of the Lisbon Legal Theory
e-mail: saraazevedo@fd.ulisboa.pt
ORCID ID: 0000-0003-0177-8677

Pravni zapisi, No. 2/2024, pp. 480-499
Original Scientific Article
DOI: 10.5937/pravzap15-53803

KEY WORDS

Legal Dilemmas, Constitutional Dilemmas, Moral Dilemmas, Normative Conflicts.

ABSTRACT

It is widely recognized that the application of legal norms can lead to normative conflicts. Alongside the notion of normative conflict, the concept of legal dilemma has gained prominence, although its use in legal discourse raises several questions. First, the concept of legal dilemma is a reproduction, mutatis mutandis, of the concept of dilemma developed in moral philosophy. Second, some legal scholars focus exclusively on constitutional dilemmas (i.e., legal dilemmas involving constitutional norms), seemingly assuming that this is a phenomenon limited to the application of constitutional norms. This paper examines how the concept of dilemma is defined in moral philosophy and discusses whether and to what extent the proposals developed in that field can be imported into the legal world. The aim of this paper is to clarify what is usually meant by legal and constitutional dilemmas, and to identify the advantages and inconveniences of using these concepts in legal discourse.