scholarly journals ON THE TRANSFORMATION OF LAW IN THE CONTEXT OF COMMUNICATIVE THEORY

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (49) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bjarne Melkevik
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Social Consensus ◽  
Life World ◽  
Open Model ◽  
Speaking Out ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Law ◽  
Communicative Theory ◽  
Democratic Transformation

The author analyses the contribution of Jürgen Habermas as an open model of legal thought. He focuses more specifically on the question of the transformation of law as "anchored" in democratic legitimacy and therefore to be understood from the life world of concrete individuals. The author emphasizes that Habermas seeks to democratically stabilize "legality and legitimacy" to protect them from all undemocratic usurpation. The author stresses the "social validity" that accompanies all public discourse and the perspective of democracy obtained by speaking out at the level of a multitude of social "procedures". It is through practical discussions that we can "test" the normative proposals to better assess their "meanings and validity", their "cognitivity and universality", their "usefulness (“interest”) and (conceivable) consensus". The author analyses these six bodies of thought in detail to identify the meaning of habermasian thought concerning the democratic transformation of the law. He insists that the transformation of the law is "tested" in society from the bottom up in order to create, as much as possible, the broadest possible social consensus concerning “law”. In the end, the law attests to our ability to live together.

Showing what “marriage” is: Law’s civilizing sign

Semiotica ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 (209) ◽  
pp. 249-275
Author(s):  
Soo Meng Jude Chua
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Distinct Difference ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Life World ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Family Unit ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law

AbstractIn “What is Marriage?” (2010), Girgis et al. explain how the legal redefinition of the traditional meaning of marriage would erode not only the institution, but also the common good. More importantly, they argue that there are principled reasons why the law should distinguish conjugal and revisionist conceptions of unions and retain the conjugal meaning of “marriage.” However their arguments I argue are problematic. Retrieving their insights, I develop a different argument on behalf of their case. By examining phenomenologically the dynamism of the life-world of relationships under the “conjugal” and the “revisionist” conceptions of marriage, rather than the physics of coitus and same sex activity, I argue that there is a distinct difference between the two types of unions. Also, conjugal unions matures us so that we can become other-caring persons, with civilizing effects that trickle outwards into the community from the core of a conjugal family unit. I conclude that the law should retain the traditional meaning of “marriage” to include only conjugal unions, in order to point to these instead of others, with the social and civilizing benefits these unions entail when young men and women aspire to and attain these.

SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY OF THE COURT AS A PREREQUISITE FOR THE LEGAL RESPONSIBILITY OF A JUDGE

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yaroslav Skoromnyy ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Responsibility ◽  
Legal Responsibility ◽  
Court Cases ◽  
Council Of Europe ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Modern System ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Law ◽  
Conceptual Foundations

The article reveals the conceptual foundations of the social responsibility of the court as an important prerequisite for the legal responsibility of a judge. It has been established that the problem of court and judge liability is regulated by the following international and Ukrainian documents, such as: 1) European Charter on the Law «On the Status of Judges» adopted by the Council of Europe; 2) The Law of Ukraine «On the Judicial System and the Status of Judges»; 3) the Constitution of Ukraine; 4) The Code of Judicial Ethics, approved by the Decision of the XI (regular) Congress of Judges of Ukraine; 5) Recommendation CM/Rec (2010) 12 of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Council of Europe to member states regarding judges: independence, efficiency and responsibilities; 6) Bangalore Principles of Judicial Conduct. The results of a survey conducted by the Democratic Initiatives Foundation and the Razumkov Center, the Council of Judges of Ukraine and the Center for Judicial Studios with the support of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation based on the «Monitoring of the State of Independence of Judges in Ukraine – 2012» as part of the study of the level of trust in the modern system were considered and analyzed, justice, judges and courts. It is determined that a judge has both a legal and a moral duty to impartially, independently, in a timely manner and comprehensively consider court cases and make fair judicial decisions, administering justice on the basis of legislative norms. Based on the study of the practice of litigation, it has been proven that judges must skillfully operate with various instruments of protection from public influence. It has been established that in order to ensure the protection of judges from the public, it is necessary to create special units that will function as part of judicial self-government bodies. It was proposed that the Council of Judges of Ukraine, which acts as the highest body of judicial self- government in our state (in Ukraine), legislate the provision on ensuring the protection of the procedural independence of judges.

LEGAL ESSENCE OF ANCIENT PROVERBS AND SAYS AND THEIR SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela Dranishnikova ◽  
Ivan Semenov
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Social Significance ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
The Public ◽  
Moral Standards ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Status Position

The national legal system is determined by traditional elements characterizing the culture and customs that exist in the social environment in the form of moral standards and the law. However, the attitude of the population to the letter of the law, as a rule, initially contains negative properties in order to preserve personal freedom, status, position. Therefore, to solve pressing problems of rooting in the minds of society of the elementary foundations of the initial order, and then the rule of law in the public sphere, proverbs and sayings were developed that in essence contained legal educational criteria.

Instituting Europe: Germany, the Union, and the Legacy of the Short Century

2001 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Michael Werz
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Institutional Reforms ◽  
Crucial Question ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Federal Structure

Recent debates about the future of the European Union have focusedin large part on institutional reforms, the deficit of democratic legitimacy,and the problem of economic and agrarian policies. As importantas these issues may be, the most crucial question at the momentis not whether Europe will prevail as a union of nations or as a thoroughlyintegrated federal structure. What is of much greater concernis the fact that political structures and their corresponding politicaldiscourses have lagged far behind the social changes occurring inEuropean societies. The pivotal transformation of 1989 has not beengrasped intellectually or politically, even though its results areincreasingly visible in both the east and west.

The Social Paradox of Citizen Denunciation: Informing Practices in Modern Poland

2021 ◽  
pp. 088832542097764
Author(s):  
Jolanta Arcimowicz ◽  
Mariola Bieńko ◽  
Beata Łaciak
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Eastern Bloc ◽  
Political Transformation ◽  
Media Report ◽  
Civic Society ◽  
Individual Interviews ◽  
The Social ◽  
Communist Countries

Within sociological literature, including that which analyses systemic changes in the countries of the former Eastern Bloc, denunciation is one of the least studied issues, both empirically and theoretically. In Poland after the political transformation, as well as in other post-communist countries, the problem of dealing with security service and secret police informers and collaborators has not gone away. News media report a rapidly growing number of denunciations directed to various institutions and administrative offices, and legal regulations regarding denunciations have also appeared. In public discourse, denunciation and whistleblowing are increasingly often equated. Encouragement to inform about aberrations, confronted with the consequences that whistleblowers face, shows the legal and social vacuum around the institution of whistleblowing in Poland. This article, in response to questions about the modern social image of denunciation, is based on analysis of in-depth individual interviews conducted during 2015–2017 with children, adults, and administrative officials in three Polish cities. The results show that both children and adults treat denunciation as a form of harming others, though they do differentiate their moral judgments depending on the delator’s intention, but they rarely attribute any motive other than personal gain to whistleblowers’ actions. Finally, the existing administrative acquiescence and institutional support for denunciation are sometimes interpreted in terms of the weakness of democracy, immaturity of civic society, and the legacy of a totalitarian state.

The social uses of the law at a Soweto garbage dump: Reclaiming the law and the state in the informal economy

2016 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 222-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melanie Samson
Keyword(s):  
Informal Economy ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Legal Theory ◽  
Social World ◽  
The State ◽  
Informal Workers ◽  
The Social ◽  
Critical Legal Theory ◽  
The Law ◽  
Social Uses

The informal economy is typically understood as being outside the law. However, this article develops the concept ‘social uses of the law’ to interrogate how informal workers understand, engage and deploy the law, facilitating the development of more nuanced theorizations of both the informal economy and the law. The article explores how a legal victory over the Johannesburg Council by reclaimers of reusable and recyclable materials at the Marie Louise landfill in Soweto, South Africa shaped their subjectivities and became bound up in struggles between reclaimers at the dump. Engaging with critical legal theory, the author argues that in a social world where most people do not read, understand, or cite court rulings, the ‘social uses of the law’ can be of greater import than the actual judgement. This does not, however, render the state absent, as the assertion that the court sanctioned particular claims and rights is central to the reclaimers’ social uses of the law. Through the social uses of the law, these reclaimers force us to consider how and why the law, one of the cornerstones of state formation, cannot be separated from the informal ways it is understood and deployed. The article concludes by sketching a research agenda that can assist in developing a more relational understanding of the law and the informal economy.

scholarly journals Introduction: Some ponderings on the use of the law in the writing of histories

2001 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-175
Author(s):  
NIMROD HURVITZ ◽  
EDWARD FRAM
Keyword(s):  
Legal Doctrine ◽  
Legal Cases ◽  
Legal Documents ◽  
Historical Significance ◽  
Partial Reconstruction ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Hours ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Law

Professional jurists are often inquisitive about the subject matter of their calling and in the course of their careers may well develop fascinating insights into the law and those who interpret it. Their employers, however, be they governments, corporations, firms, or private clients, rarely show similar enthusiasm for such insights unless the hours spent pondering the social or historical significance of this or that legal view have a contemporary value that justifies the lawyer's fee.Thankfully, other members of society are rewarded for mining the legal records of the past. For legal historians, the search often focuses on the changing legal ideas and how legal doctrine develops over time to meet the changing needs of societies. Yet because the law generally deals with concrete matters – again, because jurists are paid by people who are unlikely to remunerate those who simply while away their hours making up legal cases – it offers a reservoir of information that can be used, albeit with caution, in fields other than just the history of the law.A partial reconstruction of the law of any given time and place is among the more obvious historical uses of legal documents but statutes, practical decisions, and even theoretical texts can be used to advance other forms of the historical endeavour. Legal works often reflect the values both of jurists and society-at-large, for while the law creates social values it is not immune to changes in these very values.

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