Tag Archives: Legality

Legitimacy and Legality Part IV: The Situation in Austria

23 Monday Jan 2023

Posted by in Christendom

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Zessner_SpitzenbergLegitimitat

By Dr. Hans Karl von Zeßner-Spitzenberg

Translated by M. T. Scarince

Translator’s note: This is the final part in a series of posts translating the work of Austrian Legitimist philosopher Hans Karl Freiherr von Zeßner-Spitzenberg (1885-1938), an active member of the Kaiser-Karl-Gebetsliga and a martyr for the cause of Austrian independence from the National Socialist occupation. Read Part I, Part II, Part III. 

II. Let us now apply these principles to the situation in Austria today.

For such an application to the Austrian situation to be of any use, everything else will be self-evident when there is clarity as to whether or not a lawful, legitimate acquisition of power is found at the infancy of today’s public authorities, or a breach of law, the moral wrong of violating existing authorities and better rights of rule. After that, the question of whether we are dealing with a merely legal power, or whether this power is free from any restitution obligation due to foreign violation of rights and therefore can be called a legitimate authority, is decided. 

Continue reading →

Legitimacy and Legality Part III: A Brief Outline of the System 5.-9.

18 Wednesday Aug 2021

Posted by in Christendom

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

Zessner_SpitzenbergLegitimitat

By Dr. Hans Karl von Zeßner-Spitzenberg

Translated by M. T. Scarince

Translator’s note: This is the third part in a series of posts translating the work of Austrian Legitimist philosopher Hans Karl Freiherr von Zeßner-Spitzenberg (1885-1938), an active member of the Kaiser-Karl-Gebetsliga and a martyr for the cause of Austrian independence from the National Socialist occupation. Read Part I, Part II, Part IV.

5. Legality 

Legal refers to a state power which actually exists as a state power, as legislation and guardian of the law, which operates as such and as such has de facto asserted itself in public life. It fulfills the basic moral purpose of the state, the maintenance of public order, and thus the care of the Common Good by means of the basic element of the state’s power of order (i.e. by means of the positive legal regulation of social relations); namely, when it keeps itself bound to the positive legal order given and represented by it, when it sets the predetermined legal ways and measures in place of arbitrary acts of violence. These two moments, the actual establishment of order and one’s own commitment to it, are what make a force legal state power, in contrast to arbitrary and violent rule on the one hand and to revolutionary, adventurist, street-thug or tyrant rule on the other, which do not guarantee the moral original purpose of state power: public order and the Common Good through positive statutes. 

Continue reading →

Legitimacy and Legality Part II: A Brief Outline of the System 1.-4.

17 Tuesday Aug 2021

Posted by in Christendom

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

, , , , ,

Zessner_Spitzenberg

By Dr. Hans Karl von Zeßner-Spitzenberg

Translated by M. T. Scarince

Translator’s note: This is the second part in a series of posts translating the work of Austrian Legitimist philosopher Hans Karl Freiherr von Zeßner-Spitzenberg (1885-1938), an active member of the Kaiser-Karl-Gebetsliga and a martyr for the cause of Austrian independence from the National Socialist occupation. Read Part I, Part III, Part IV.

For the purposes of this work, the following system is briefly outlined:

1. Morality and Public Law

Public powers and public legal systems are also essentially subject to the same moral principles and stand within the framework of the same Divine world order as private rights, powers and authorities. Here also, human beings are their bearers, responsible for their institution and exercise. Here also, we are dealing with the powers of individuals or entire communities in the fulfillment of a profession, which, like every profession, must serve (after God’s glory) not only the beneficiary himself or the community which he serves, but also the good of his fellow men.

Indeed, the power-competence in this case is necessarily more strongly directed towards authoritative ordering power of the rights of others than it is elsewhere, on account of the main goal of public order; here also it is only within the framework of the Eternal order, which protects and recognizes the appropriate vested rights and inviolable jurisdiction of individuals. From the moral point of view, therefore, public law can be distinguished from private law in these matters only in its object and in its particular purpose, but not in general demands and basic attitudes.

Continue reading →

“A Revolution, a Breach of Law”

12 Sunday Nov 2017

Posted by in Christendom, HRM Archive

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , ,

The 12th of November, 1918, was a Revolution, a breach of law, a breach of faith, against the Emperor as Emperor, and especially against him as the Sovereign of his countries [Landesfürsten]  and at the same time a revolution against the Crownlands and the authorities of the Crownlands.

The act of November 12th, 1918 can not be objectively judged any differently. It lacks any derivative or original legitimacy. It established usurpatory powers. They have established for themselves a legal state, to be respected as a legal power, but have not eliminated the moral right of the repressed legitimate authority to return, as well as the moral duty of all those today in power to return to the legitimate order as far as is possible; here again, even during such times when the Restoration is impossible, emphasis must be placed on obligation of loyalty.

-Dr. Hans Karl von Zeßner-Spitzenberg, Legitimität und Legalität

Austriae est imperare orbi universo

HRM_Logo_4

On Pope Leo XIII and the Legitimacy of Authorities

25 Friday Aug 2017

Posted by in Christendom, HRM Archive

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

“Did not Pope Leo XIII declare, in an Encyclical to French Catholics, that a new authority might, for the sake of the Common Good, receive the right to rule, when the rightful authorities have been removed and are no longer available, and a chaos has arisen so that the maintenance of order requires that new powers be established?

This is to be answered, new legitimacy comes from such emergency power only when the old Authorities and their rightfully appointed successors are not only removed from power, but no longer actually exist. In that case the path lies open, indeed it creates a new necessity, for the establishment of a new legitimate authority.  So long as the rightful Authorities are merely hindered and incapacitated, the emergency order is only permitted as an emergency order, that is to say as a curator or guardian, for so long as the rightful Authority is repressed and its Restoration hindered. However it must not set itself in opposition to this. It is therefore merely legal.”

-Dr. Hans Karl von Zeßner-Spitzenberg, Legitimität und Legalität

(The full text of Dr. H.K. von Zeßner-Spitzenberg’s Legitimität und Legalität is in the process of being translated and will be published in full on The War for Christendom)