When approaching Habermas's work, one cannot avoid noting that the German constitutional jurist and philosopher Carl Schmitt (1888-1985) finds himself constantly under fire from direct and implicit criticism. Habermas openly rejects Schmitt's ideas, which he considers harmful because they manifest anti-democraticism. He is so vehemently opposed to Schmitt's political and legal thought that he impedes legal reasoning (as well as legal practice) in the turns of irrationality, even in the swamps of legal and political amateurism. In Habermas's eyes, Schmitt embodies the syndrome of totalitarianism, servitude and immersion in the face of all that is pure and cruel, which has served and blinded the German people and especially its cultural, legal or political elites. He clearly rejects its authoritarian and shameful side, the existence of which he deplores as much as its persistence in German legal and political culture.
The practical and theoretical reasons for this disagreement and the rejection of Schmittism in all its forms will concern us later. To the extent that Habermas's democratic theory of law is the exact opposite of Schmitt's anti-democratic authoritarianism, this critique allows us to take a unique look at the methods of this theory itself.