Les a priori dans l'interprétation juridique et le droit comparé

The study analyses the role of a priori assumptions in legal interpretation – intended as the collective presuppositions, conscious or unconscious, that intervene between a legal rule as enacted and its application. Behind every discourse (of any kind) there is always a deeper level consisting of practices perpetuated in silence, of presuppositions that become hunches, and of unnoticed, long-held knowledge. Drawing on Rodolfo Sacco’s concept of « cryptotypes » and on analytical hermeneutics, the author shows that comparative law is the essential tool for rendering visible the implicit structures inherent in each legal culture, and for demonstrating that legal interpretation is not a purely mechanical process, but an activity mediated by a cultural and doctrinal background that reveals the spirit of the law. The example of the European directive on liability for defective products illustrates how the intentional omission of a normative text’s theoretical foundations can generate divergent interpretations, and how reconstructing doctrinal a priori assumptions contributes to restoring interpretive coherence.