Obligaţia cunoaşterii legii – prezumţie sau ficţiune juridică ?
THE OBLIGATION TO KNOW THE LAW – PRESUMPTION OR LEGAL FICTION?

Summary/Abstract: The legislature, entitled as such to bring forward the law, shall find the most appropriate expression in the legal language, in the content of legal norms and the manner this language is perceived by those to whom it addresses. In this respect, it makes use of certain specific procedures for bringing forward legal rules, procedures whose purpose is to explain and express as clearly as possible the legal rules it decides upon. The most important proceedings used by the legislator are presumptions and fictions. The presumption considers that something is true, without any evidence and without proving its existence and the fiction is a certain process of the legislator or the judge by means of which a fact is deemed to exist or to be established although it does not actually exist neither has it really been established. The most important presumption one can operate with is the presumption to know the law upon its publication, an presumption otherwise considered to be conclusive, unlikely to be challenged by anyone and under no circumstances. This presumption can have hard and undesirable effects in so that the individual called to account for the violation of law can bring evidence to testify he was actually in the effective impossibility of knowing the law. Therefore, a law comes into force within three days upon its publication and this term is usually not enough for disseminating and supporting the idea that laws are known by the majority of those interested. Through the legal rules established, the state guarantees the fundamental rights and freedom of citizens but it cannot be able to guarantee the fact that all the addressees of legal rules shall know these rules and they shall not be violated. In this respect, knowing the law can fulfil the requirements for passing from the concept of presumption to that of legal fiction.

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