José Marie Sauca

José Maria Sauca is Full Professor of Philosophy of Law at the Carlos III University of Madrid, Spain. He has been developing his academic career for near 40 years. The universities he has worked with most frequently are in Canada, Italy, Mexico, the UK and France. He edit the journal Eunomia and lead a research group on Law and Justice.

The project

Title: Culture of Lawfulness: concept and movement

"The Culture of Lawfulness is a theoretical movement with practical implications that is extremely complex and presents itself with an open breadth of themes and approaches. In the successive reports of several research projects that I have obtained, as well as in some personal publications (and, above all, in the determination of an editorial line in Eunomía. Revista en Cultura de la Legalidad), I have been outlining which are the preferred themes, which are the predominant methodological approaches and which are the singular perspectives that characterise it. In general terms, the culture of Lawfulness refers to the development of a discursive practice of normative reasonableness. The frontispiece of Eunomia proposes as its themes “the legitimacy of law and obedience to it, paying special attention to the development of the rule of law and the deepening of democracy”. In the breadth of these frameworks, I believe that three relevant thematic nuclei can be detected. On the one hand, a preference for a pragmatic and contextual approach in the conception of the legal phenomenon and a preference for a multidisciplinary approach to its study. On the other hand, the conformation of a normative proposal that advocates the development of legal dynamics as a practice that achieves or, at least, promotes the characteristic values of the rule of law and the extension of a robust democracy. Finally, special attention is paid to the negative aspects or inadequacies of this programme, which lead to the study of the multiple dimensions of impunity, corruption and the failure to comply with the law and its aims. Within this framework, I find myself in the perspective of further developing a theoretical characterisation of this approach to the idea of Law."

Hosting institution: Université Paris Nanterre - Centre de Théorie et Analyse du Droit

Selective Bibliography

• « Plurinational Federalism in Spain: Alain-G. Gagnon´s contribution to debate – Le Fédéralisme Plurinational en Espagne: La Contribution d`Alain-G. Gagnon au Débat ». Guy Laforest, Geneviève Nootens and Félix Mathieu (coords.), Plurinational Societies in all their dimensions. International Perspective on the work of Alain-G. Gafnon - Les sociétes plurinationales dans tous leurs États. Perspectives internationales sur l´œuvre d´Alain-G. Gagnon, Québec: Les Presses de l´Université Laval, 2025 (forthcoming). 
• Juan Carlos Bayón y José Mª Sauca (dirs.) La reforma constitucional: problemas filosóficos y jurídicos, Valencia: Tirant lo Blanch, 2025..
• «De la metodología jurídica a la sociología jurídica. Reflexiones sobre la senda intelectual de Manuel Calvo». Mª José González Ordovás y David Vila Viñas (coords.), Debates actuales en la filosofía del Derecho y la sociología jurídica. Libro homenaje al Prof. Manuel Calvo García, Valencia: Tirant lo Blanch, 2025, pp. 189-206.
• «Aproximaciones a una cultura del lenguaje jurídico claro y (des)encuentros con la cultura de la legalidad» en Germán Arenas Arias y Isabel Wences (coords.), Cómo puede alguien cumplir una ley que nadie entiende. Estudios interdisciplinarios sobre lenguaje claro y cultura de la legalidad, Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2024, pp. 23-36. 
• «Constitutional Liquidity between Rigidity and Flexibility: Constitutional Liquidity Clauses». Problema. Anuario de Filosofía y Teoría del Derecho (UNAM), núm. 18, enero-diciembre de 2024, and pp. 11-42. enero-diciembre de 2024, and pp. 11-42.