Resumen de Who killed the lawmaker?: a Barthesian analysis on constitutional interpretation

Francisco J. Campos Zamora

• The purpose of this paper is to show how interdisciplinary studies between the fields of law and literature can contribute to the debate on legal interpretation, and to the role of what legal operators actually do when deciding constitutional issues. First, we will review one of the possible meeting points between law and literature – i. e. law as literature – and we will examine Roland Barthes’ semiological proposal, specifically his theory about “The Death of the Author”; from there on, we will show how the ideas and concepts he coined constitute one of the tools that best describe the mechanics of the current constitutional interpretation in some legal systems. This will lead to what we will call “The Death of the Lawmaker”.