La recondución práctica de las leyes a la ley natural: la epiqueya

Abstract

The practical reinterpretation of positive law in the light of its originating principle, oriented to the common good, need neither be a dispensation from the law, nor a discrediting of the legislator, nor a judgment on the law itself, nor an interpretation of said law, but rather it is a virtue, i.e. that of epieikeia. This is made necessary by the fact that a law cannot refer rightly to all cases; in some cases it will fail, and thus the legislator writes the law to cover what occurs in the majority of the cases, without ignoring the fact that in certain cases there will be a failure of the law to apply. This is, according to St. Thomas, that which is contemplated by the epieikeia in order to reinterpret positive law in the light of natural law.