Argumentative Operators in Legislative Engineering

A Study on the Redefining the Legal Status of Promotion in Jordan

Abstract

This study investigated the argumentative structure embedded in the texts governing promotion in the Jordanian public sector, treating them as a discourse that transcends a neutral regulatory function to actively produce legal and institutional effects. The linguistic analysis focused on deconstructing how the concepts of merit, entitlement, and evaluation were reconfigured within the Human Resources Management System in the public sector and the promotion rules and guidelines issued pursuant to it, as well as the resulting transformations in the characterization of the employee's legal status and in the effectiveness of administrative judicial review over related decisions. Methodologically, the study drew on the framework of linguistic argumentation as developed by Ducrot and Anscombre, and rhetorical argumentation as theorized by Perelman and Tyteca, alongside concepts derived from legal certainty and administrative law. The analysis concluded that the examined texts operate through a system of argumentative markers where by language moves beyond neutral description to perform procedural functions, most notably: denying the rights-based nature of promotion, curtailing the horizon of legitimate expectation for employees, entrenching the centrality of discretionary criteria, and privileging their relative weights. This contributed to a redistribution of argumentative force among evaluation elements in favor of discretionary authority, insulating it in a manner that narrows and constrains substantive judicial scrutiny, and shifts judicial oversight from examining the element of cause and the reasonableness of administrative assessment to merely verifying the integrity of formal procedures. Through the production of inferential paths that procedurally fortify administrative decisions and limit their exposure to substantive review, the study demonstrates a reconfiguration of the relationship between administrative legislation, discretionary power, and the presumed legal protection embedded within the framework of the social contract, underscoring the importance of incorporating argumentative analysis into the study of contemporary administrative legislation.