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Significance of Comparative LawGreat attention is devoted in legal science to comparative law, And although disputes and discussions concerning the status of l hr. scientific orientation and the group of problems within its jurisdiction continue to this day, it is now generally recognised that comparative studies of law are important for the future development of legal science Comparative legal research in combination with traditional historical, normative, and sociological views of law enable: first, the phenomena of legal reality to be studied which previously were not encompassed by jurisprudence and to depart from the national frameworks of a legal system; second, to examine from a special vantage point a number of traditional problems of legal science taking into account the I rends in the development of law in the modern world. For legal science devoted principally to national law the use of comparative law is especially important since comparative law helps to establish how the same legal problem is resolved in various countries, enlarges the horizons of legal research, and enables both the positive and the negative foreign legal experience to be taken into account. Without taking into account the data of comparative law, general theoretical conclusions these days can not pretend to have a universal and general character. On the other hand, certain concepts of legal science need clarification by taking into account foreign legal experience and world legal thought. The growing trend towards the interdependence of States of the world community is characteristic of the modem epoch. Modern civilisations can not close themselves off and reject contacts and links, and consequently, a cognition of one another. A socially and politically diverse world, but simultaneously an interlinked and to a great extent integral world, is being formed. This unity and international mutual dependence with the inevitable mutual approximation underlies the contrast and comparison of modern legal systems. Comparative law is called upon to show all of this diversity in its legal aspects, thereby stressing the priority of universal human values in the development of law in civilised societies. The need for international cooperation and modern global problems (scientific-technical progress, ecology, demography, and others) require unswerving attention to the principal legal systems of the world and a new view of existing legal problems. On this plane the role of comparative law is growing as a means of studying and assessing legal spheres in which this cooperation is proceeding. Broad opportunities have opened to use comparative law for the purposes of international cooperation and the formation of a single world rule-of-law State. Comparative law is endeavouring to hold in view all of the principal modern legal systems. In so doing the equality of legal systems on the scientific plane arises, of their theoretical study and classification. Recognition of the parallel existence of various legal systems creates a favourable foundation for the fruitful cooperation of jurists from various countries, irrespective of whether their socio-political systems and legal structures differ. The legal comparatist faces the task by means of the objective study and contrast of existing legal systems of finding the best legal solutions for specific social problems in a determined socioeconomic, political, and cultural context. Comparative law is multi-dimensional. First, it is concerned with general theoretical conceptions of law in general (and they do not coincide with the representatives of various legal systems) and demonstrate the pluralism of legal conceptions and understandings of law. Second, problems are analyzed within the framework of comparative law not only at the level of the general theory of law, but also of the branch legal sciences; in this connection comparative legal studies acquire an interdisciplinary legal character. Third, the consideration of the problems of comparative law has a profound legal and socio-political significance insofar as they are closely linked with ensuring the legal foundations for the unfolding of democracy, strengthening of legality, and effectuation of the justness of justice. Comparative law is an integrated orientation of legal scientific research having scientific-theoretical and practical applied importance. It is the most adequate instrument for the cognition of the principal trends of legal development in the modern epoch. The level of development achieved does not fully satisfy the queries of legal science and the requirements of legal practice, offers insufficient material for fundamental theoretical conclusions, and lags behind the requirements advanced by reforms of the political and legal systems. There are a number of reasons for this. First. Many legal scholars in the Soviet period, when conducting specialized studies of the problems of the theory and practice of comparative law, pursued an unequivocal critical purpose which was realised principally on the level of “unmasking” bourgeois law through contrastive comparison. To be sure, under conditions of rivalry and ideological confrontation of two opposed socio-political systems such a critical analysis was to a certain extent justified; however, it should not have been reduced to a tendentious selection of materials, the withholding of individual facts, and unequivocal negative assessments. Just as any other scientific analysis, comparative research of the legal reality of foreign countries is called upon to give an accurate picture and not to squeeze complex, contradictory, dynamic processes into tight, previously conceived ideological schemes formed in the past. Second. Specialized studies of the problems of one’s own national legal system were not accompanied by a constructive legal analysis of foreign legal institutions. In its day the “campaign against cosmopolitanism” played an especially negative role in cutting back studies and the comparative analysis of foreign State and law in all of I heir diversity; at the end of the 1940s such research was deemed to be a “manifestation of a low genuflection towards bourgeois culture”. As a result, these two inextricably linked orientations of legal research virtually never crossed when resolving internal problems of national law. I u the meantime life showed the need to develop comparative law in its modern understanding: to study foreign law specially, showing both its common laws of societal development and features and the specific properties of the principal legal families and individual national legal systems; to consider foreign forms with the assistance of the comparative method and the experience of resolving specific legal problems put by politico-legal reform on the agenda, especially in connection with the task of forming a democratic rule-of-law State and a just civil society. In recent decades legal comparativistics has been significantly enriched in the world: the rapid tempo in the growth of the number and thematic diversity of comparative legal research; the creation of new specialized institutions, the number of publications on comparative law. Comparative law is especially fruitful both in the domain of improving national legislation and in the cause of working out, adopting, and unifying international legal acts, and also in the teaching of legal disciplines, as experience has accumulated with the generalization of empirical material and the techniques and methodologies of comparative law studies.
Date: 2015-01-12; view: 1006
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