Duguit ¡El Estado reencontrado!

Abstract

Professor PACTEAU evokes and dedicates this article to professor DUGUIT, from Bordeaux’s University. DUGUIT was a jurist with strong personality and sharp eloquence that along his career evolved in his questioning of the figure of the State. Founder of the Public Service Theory he reflected about the origin and aim of Law as a social science, about the role of the State in society, and how it had to be submitted to Law. Strongly influenced by sociological trends, he had a Cartesian spirit with sometimes acid criticism. DUGUIT had an international projection, he was both a distinguished humanist and a jurist interested in positivism, but keeping in mind Natural Law perspectives. Dialectally opposed to Maurice HAURIOU’s thesis, DUGUIT would become closer to them at the end of his life. Detractor of individualism, he studied the power of the State and the strength of governors that had to be objectified by Law, but submitted to superior principles: indeed, DUGUIT rejected the Popular Sovereignty Dogma. Reluctant initially to a constitutional jurisdiction, he would admit it at the end praising its existence, even though being critic to certain aspects like its composition (either political or merely theoretical). Actually, in France has been recently voted the constitutional question by means of the July 2008 constitutional’s reform, being a reunion with the State and acting as a guarantor for its legitimacy. DUGUIT, defends a Public Service as ground of Public Law, considering that Law has to seek social solidarity through freedom, as a mean to obtain it.