The concept of Constraint: A New Approach to the Concept of Contradiction in Law

The concept of contradiction is important in the interpretation of legal and religious laws because the legislator uses the concept of contradiction in many laws. In law texts, this concept has been referred to as condition, attribute, goal, limitation, number and title. As each of these concepts has been treated separately, it has caused an increase in the volume of the relevant law texts. This does not seem to be a proper policy because all of these concepts constrain the law in similar ways. Therefore, one can discuss them under a general umbrella term introduced as the concept of constraint in the present article. All these concepts are used somehow to limit or to constrain the subject of a law. The question that can be raised is whether a law is actually nullified as the constraints mentioned in it are removed? This article explores ways of studying and researching concepts related to contradiction. It expects to introduce a new approach that can be used in the current practices of law and jurisprudence in Iran. The findings of the present work indicate that the concept of constraint is actually a unitary one and one cannot rely on lexical variations in the related literature. The intentions of the legislator may be arrived at by considering both the superficial lexical items used and their logical implications.