Theory Of Legal Principles (law And Philosophy Library)

THEORY OF LEGAL PRINCIPLES Law and Philosophy Library VOLUME 81 Managing Editors FRANCISCO J. LAPORTA, Department of Law, Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain ALEKSANDER PECZENIK† , Department of Law, University of Lund, Sweden FREDERICK SCHAUER, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A. Former Managing Editors AULIS AARNIO, MICHAEL D. BAYLES† , CONRAD D. JOHNSON† , ALAN MABE Editorial Advisory Board AULIS AARNIO, Research Institute for Social Sciences, University of Tampere, Finland ´ ZENON BANKOWSKI, Centre for Law and Society, University of Edinburgh PAOLO COMANDUCCI, University of Genoa, Italy ERNESTO GARZÓN VALDÉS, Institut für Politikwissenschaft, Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz JOHN KLEINIG, Department of Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York NEIL MacCORMICK, European Parliament, Brussels, Belgium WOJCIECH SADURSKI, European University Institute, Department of Law, Florence, Italy ROBERT S. SUMMERS, School of Law, Cornell University CARL WELLMAN, Department of Philosophy, Washington University THEORY OF LEGAL PRINCIPLES By HUMBERTO ÁVILA Professor of Public Law at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil Ph.D in Law (University of Munich, 2001) A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN 978-1-4020-5878-3 (HB) ISBN 978-1-4020-5879-0 (e-book) Published by Springer, P.O. Box 17, 3300 AA Dordrecht, The Netherlands. www.springer.com Printed on acid-free paper All Rights Reserved © 2007 Springer No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. THE AUTHOR HUMBERTO ÁVILA is a specialist in Corporate Finance from the School of Economic Sciences of the Federal University at Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), and a Master in Law from the Law School of UFRGS. His thesis “Provisional Measure in the 1988 Constitution” was published by Editora Sérgio Fabris in 1997. With a CNPq-granted scholarship, he went to the University of Munich, Germany in 1996, where he obtained a Certificate of Studies in Methodology of the Science of Law under the instruction of Claus-Wilhelm Canaris, and the degree of Doctor in Law under the instruction of Klaus Vogel. His summa cum laude doctorate dissertation was published in 2002 by Baden-Baden’s Nomos, under the title “Materiell verfassungsrechtliche Beschränkungen der Besteuerungsgewalt in der brasilianischen Verfassung und im deutschen Grundgesetz” (Substantive constitutional limitations to the power to tax in the Brazilian Constitution and German Fundamental Law). Besides practicing law and writing legal opinions in Porto Alegre, the author is also a Professor of Tax, Finance and Economic Law at the School of Law of UFRGS, where he was admitted through a public contest in which he qualified with the first place. He is a Professor of the LL.M and Ph.D. programs at UFRGS, where he is also a Member of the Graduate Program Coordinating Committee and the Coordinator of the Tax Law Specialization Program. The author is the President and a Founding Member of the International Institute of Public Law Studies (IIEDE) and a counselor in the Consulting Board of the Brazilian Society of Public Law (SBDP). He is also a member of the Brazilian Institute of Tax Law (IBDT), the Brazilian Association of Finance Law (ABDF), the International Fiscal Association (IFA), the Lawyer Institute of Rio Grande do Sul (IARGS), the Insti