PONDERATION ONCE MORE

Abstract

The author starts by analysing a series of examples of legal balancing and weighing trying to reply to the central questions of the debate initiated in the contemporary  theory of  law  between  supporters  and  critics  of  this particular  argumentative  method,  which is  moreover  much  used  in courts,  above  all in the Supreme  and Constitutional  Courts. He begins by taking Alexy´s arguments  as his point of departure, seeking to answer the question of what balancing is, what its characteristics are and how it can be differentiated from subsumption. He secondly tackles the problem of when there must be balancing and when it is justif ied to do it. Finally, he tries to answer the question of whether balancing is  a rational method and in what that rationality consists of, showing his critics how the criteria of balancing used in court decisions, and specif ically of the Constitutional  Court can be considered a good example of how this practical rationality operates in the sphere of law.