O normatywności, redundantności i zbędności przepisów prawnych

The theory of rational lawgiver entails an assumption of normativeness of legal text. The assumption can be expressed in two propositions: (1) articulated parts of legal text are normative, and (2) other parts of legal text (i.e. preambles, titles of acts, parts, chapters etc.) are not normative. Closer examination of Polish legal text shows that propositions (1)–(2) are not necessarily always true. The authors propose several defi nitions and use the enriched vocabulary to express theoretical possibility and to show real cases of non-normative fragments of articulated parts of legal texts and normative fragments of other parts of legal text. The types of normativeness are defined: the broadest, broad, and strict. The notion of normativeness is tightly connected with notions of redundancy and superfluity of legal texts. The distinctions which were made in the article can be used — as the authors hint in the conclusion remarks — to expand contemporary theories of legal interpretation, and to improve the quality of lawmaking process in Poland.