The principle of juridical bivalence is often taken to be an unquestionable truth about the general structure of the law. According to this principle, legal standards should be thought of as either applying or not applying in a given situation; and so, the claims and assertions of courts ought to present themselves in a similar bivalent form. Courts must deem a party guilty or not guilty, liable or not liable. This paper questions that assumption. Instead, I argue that we should put the principle of juridical bivalence under close scrutiny, for following a proper analysis of this principle, it quickly becomes evident that juridical bivalence is not as ubiquitous in law as first assumed, and moreover, if one is guided by rule of law ideals, juridical bivalence should be given a limited place in law.<\/p>\n
As part of a wider intellectual project, I begin this paper by providing an elucidation of juridical bivalence as a structural principle of law. I then introduce its counterpart: the principle of juridical gradience. With this sharpened picture of legal structure in mind, I argue that the principle of juridical bivalence often comes into conflict with the rule of law. Ultimately, the objective of this paper is to put juridical bivalence in its place and open up a discussion on other alternatives for legal structure that may better comply with rule of law ideals.<\/p>\n