Judith Hahn
Biographic Data
| ID | 3891821 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Judith Hahn |
| GIVEN NAMES | Judith |
| FAMILY NAME | Hahn |
| SIGNATURE | HAHN J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Bonn |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4643-048X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 10 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 2 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 10 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
The Language Games of Canon Law
The continental tradition of modern positive law, with its attempt to formulate clear legal rules, tends to be suspicious of ambiguity and struggles with the productive power of the untranslatable. Opaque kernels that inevitably remain in laws seem risky and call for disambiguation—through legislation, the courts, or administration. Yet despite this struggle against ambiguity, laws, as texts made of language, not only remain essentially ambiguous…
Beyond Singular Methodologies
This article argues for a renewed approach to the study of normative systems in the context of contemporary normative pluralism, where structures of dominance are no longer as clear-cut as they once seemed. Normative systems operate semi-autonomously across multiple modalities, both in their internal operations and their external interactions. Our article therefore contends that they cannot be studied in isolation or through a single methodologic…
Salus Animarum Suprema Lex
Special Issue ‘Sacred Order
Sacraments of the Law
This article proposes to identify ritualization—as the differentiation between the profane and the sacred—as the basic act underlying the creation of norms. In this light, we can perceive ritualization as a common ground of law and religion. This is particularly evident in ‘sacraments’, a specific type of ritual that culminates in the realization of the sacred within the profane. As ‘norm-facts’, sacraments draw the sacred into our everyday world…
Sex Offenses-Offensive Sex
In recent years, the sexual abuse of minors and vulnerable adults in the Catholic Church has received much attention. This is also true of the related changes to ecclesiastical legislation. Less attention, however, has been paid to other aspects of the reform. The revised penal law of the Code of Canon Law, in any case, demands closer study from the point of critical legal studies. It is striking that while the reform focused on improving the leg…
Guilt, Innocence, and Remaining Doubts
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith recently published a Vademecum to guide the ecclesiastical investigation and adjudication of cases of sexual abuse of minors committed by Catholic clergy. By collecting existing regulations, the Vademecum provides some remarkable insights into how the congregation operates its penal trials. The document inter alia discloses that the congregation operates with three verdicts in penal trials, ‘constat’…
Moral Certitude
In Roman Catholic canon law, moral certitude describes the ecclesiastical judge’s full conviction that a defendant is guilty or that a statement of claim made by a civil plaintiff is rightful. Moral certitude is the requirement for a conviction or a civil sentence in favour of the party under the burden of proof. Secular legal orders apply other standards. Anglo-American legal cultures mostly refer to the beyond a reasonable doubt standard in cri…
Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde’s Approach to Natural Law as Normative Legal Ethics
This article examines the concept of natural law in the writings of Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, a legal scholar who has influenced the German debates on legal theory for more than half a century. Böckenförde interprets natural law as normative legal ethics. He defends the importance of law being legitimized, directed, and corrected by ethics. But what kind of legal ethics may render this service to modern secular law? Böckenförde criticizes Catho…
‘Not in Heaven’. What the Talmudic Tale on the Oven of Akhnai May Contribute to the Recent Debates on the Development of Catholic Canon Law
Sex Offenses-Offensive Sex
In recent years, the sexual abuse of minors and vulnerable adults in the Catholic Church has received much attention. This is also true of the related changes to ecclesiastical legislation. Less attention, however, has been paid to other aspects of the reform. The revised penal law of the Code of Canon Law, in any case, demands closer study from the point of critical legal studies. It is striking that while the reform focused on improving the leg…
‘Not in Heaven’. What the Talmudic Tale on the Oven of Akhnai May Contribute to the Recent Debates on the Development of Catholic Canon Law
Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde’s Approach to Natural Law as Normative Legal Ethics
This article examines the concept of natural law in the writings of Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, a legal scholar who has influenced the German debates on legal theory for more than half a century. Böckenförde interprets natural law as normative legal ethics. He defends the importance of law being legitimized, directed, and corrected by ethics. But what kind of legal ethics may render this service to modern secular law? Böckenförde criticizes Catho…
Moral Certitude
In Roman Catholic canon law, moral certitude describes the ecclesiastical judge’s full conviction that a defendant is guilty or that a statement of claim made by a civil plaintiff is rightful. Moral certitude is the requirement for a conviction or a civil sentence in favour of the party under the burden of proof. Secular legal orders apply other standards. Anglo-American legal cultures mostly refer to the beyond a reasonable doubt standard in cri…
Guilt, Innocence, and Remaining Doubts
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith recently published a Vademecum to guide the ecclesiastical investigation and adjudication of cases of sexual abuse of minors committed by Catholic clergy. By collecting existing regulations, the Vademecum provides some remarkable insights into how the congregation operates its penal trials. The document inter alia discloses that the congregation operates with three verdicts in penal trials, ‘constat’…
Sex Offenses-Offensive Sex
In recent years, the sexual abuse of minors and vulnerable adults in the Catholic Church has received much attention. This is also true of the related changes to ecclesiastical legislation. Less attention, however, has been paid to other aspects of the reform. The revised penal law of the Code of Canon Law, in any case, demands closer study from the point of critical legal studies. It is striking that while the reform focused on improving the leg…
Special Issue ‘Sacred Order
Sacraments of the Law
This article proposes to identify ritualization—as the differentiation between the profane and the sacred—as the basic act underlying the creation of norms. In this light, we can perceive ritualization as a common ground of law and religion. This is particularly evident in ‘sacraments’, a specific type of ritual that culminates in the realization of the sacred within the profane. As ‘norm-facts’, sacraments draw the sacred into our everyday world…
The Language Games of Canon Law
The continental tradition of modern positive law, with its attempt to formulate clear legal rules, tends to be suspicious of ambiguity and struggles with the productive power of the untranslatable. Opaque kernels that inevitably remain in laws seem risky and call for disambiguation—through legislation, the courts, or administration. Yet despite this struggle against ambiguity, laws, as texts made of language, not only remain essentially ambiguous…
Beyond Singular Methodologies
This article argues for a renewed approach to the study of normative systems in the context of contemporary normative pluralism, where structures of dominance are no longer as clear-cut as they once seemed. Normative systems operate semi-autonomously across multiple modalities, both in their internal operations and their external interactions. Our article therefore contends that they cannot be studied in isolation or through a single methodologic…
Salus Animarum Suprema Lex
Political science (9 works) · Law (8 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Sociology (6 works) · Multicultural Socio-Legal Studies (4 works) · Religious Freedom and Discrimination (4 works) · Theology (4 works) · Normative (3 works) · Theology and Canon Law Studies (3 works) · American Constitutional Law and Politics (2 works)