Dr in Diplomacy Lorenca Bejko
The legal phenomena that together define the legal life of a particular society and state make up the legal system.
People have the right to provide defenses during their trials in contemporary judicial systems to demonstrate that they were not entirely at fault for their unlawful behavior. The criminal justice system allows the employment of defenses to guarantee that the accused obtains proportionate justice or a reasonable sentence. The main defenses that are used across the world are covered in this article, including self-defense, insanity, automatism, error of fact, necessity, duress, and provocation. By jurisdiction, defenses are applied differently. This article also discusses newer, more contentious arguments, including the brainwashing defense, the defense of a victim of abuse, the defense of a battered woman, the defense of Black anger, the defense of culture, and the defense of religion. When the legislation for the International Criminal Court was being written in the 1990s, the issue of whether defenses are valid was taken into consideration.
The cornerstone of the legal system is law. It produces a multitude of interconnected legal phenomena, including knowledge of the law, relationships with the law, and more.
When discussing the legal system, it is important to remember that there is no one, universal model that is accepted by all governments. Originality does not imply, nevertheless, that there are no similarities across legal systems. States may be merged into a single legal family if their cultures and customs are similar. Currently, criteria for categorizing legal systems are often utilized, and they are mostly based on ethnographic, technical-legal, and religious-ethical indicators of law.
The national legal system is a distinct historical body of laws, legal customs, and the preeminent legal philosophy of a certain nation. A nation’s legal system is a component of that society and exhibits the socioeconomic, political, and cultural traits of that culture. There are now over 200 national legal systems in existence.
Legal system is defined as a collection of internally consistent, connected, socially homogeneous legal means (phenomena), by which public authority regulates, organizes, and stabilizes social relations, human behavior, and group affiliations.
The whole legal structure of society is reflected in this intricate, integrating category, which is a crucial component of legal reality. The legal system is “a container, the centre of numerous legal occurrences,” as the French jurist J. Carbonnier put it so well. He points out that in order to include the whole range of phenomena it studies, legal sociology turns to the idea of “the legal system.” It would be questionable if the term “legal system” were just a synonym for objective (or positive) law.
With the aid of outdated, sometimes excessively restrictive conceptions, it has become challenging to portray contemporary legal realities. Higher generalization and abstraction levels need wider constructs (complexes), which enable the execution of more adaptable and suitable scientific processes. One of these categories is the legal system, which enables analysis and assessment of the complete legal reality rather than just its constituent parts. The idea of a legal system does not need to take the place of the notion of law. Just that the legal system’s conception of itself as the broadest and most complex should include the idea of law.
Law serves as the foundation of the legal system, as well as its connecting and securing link. Both the component and the whole are connected. One may quickly determine the fundamentals of a society’s legal system, as well as the legal philosophy and state’s legal policy, based on the character of the laws in that culture. Lawmaking, justice, legal practice, regulatory, law enforcement, and legal interpretation acts, legal relations, subjective rights and obligations, legal institutions (courts, prosecutors, advocacy), legality, responsibility, mechanisms of legal regulation, legal awareness, and many other elements are also included in the legal system.
A complex, multi-layered, multi-level, hierarchical, and dynamic creation, the legal system has its own systems and subsystems, nodes, and blocks inside its structure. Numerous of its elements serve as connections, connections, states, regimes, statuses, guarantees, principles, legal personality, and other particular phenomena that together create a vast infrastructure or environment that supports the operation of the legal system.
Normative, law-forming, doctrinal (scientific), statistical, dynamic, a block of rights and responsibilities, etc. are some of the several categories that may be made if we speak about its building components. There are various relationships and linkages between them on both a horizontal and vertical level. All of this illustrates how this nation has a complicated legal system.
The book by renowned French attorney René David is the most comprehensive treatise on contemporary legal systems. V.N. Sinyukov conducted a thorough analysis of the historical, cultural, and genetic facets of the Russian legal system.
The importance of the idea of a legal system rests in the fact that it opens up new, significant analytical avenues for a thorough examination of society’s legal system. This is a newer, higher degree of scientific abstraction that is cut off from legal reality and, as a result, is being considered on a separate plane. By doing so, you can more fully and contrastively identify the most important correlations, subordinations, and other connections and relationships between the system as a whole and its parts, as well as those between those parts, and more precisely ascertain the positioning and functions of each system link. routine work The state has access to the whole legal system. As a result, the only viable approach to the legal system is an integrated one.
The elements of the legal system differ in terms of their significance, legal nature, particular weight, independence, and level of effect on social interactions, but they are all bound by certain universal rules that are defined by unity.
Before us lies a sophisticated, dynamic, multi-level state-legal structure, not a random collection of disparate, unconnected components. It goes without saying that such a system’s operation is a complicated one. The new legal reality that has emerged today as an integrated phenomena, as a system, must thus reach such a degree of generality in the theory of law that it may be examined and evaluated more thoroughly.
Though relatively similar, the terms “legal system” and “legal superstructure” cannot be used interchangeably. While the legal superstructure is typically thought of as the unity of three components: beliefs, relations, and institutions, the legal system more accurately and completely represents the structure of legal substance, including all of its tiniest connections, or “capillaries.”
The substance, elemental makeup, epistemological functions, social aim, function in public life, nature of determination by material and other variables, and origin of the legal system and the legal superstructure are different. The legal system is a more differentiated and subdivided category; it has several elements, multiple structures, and a hierarchy.
The superstructure category “shows where legal phenomena are located largely in relation to the economic base; the idea of a legal system helps principally to represent internal links, their organization, and structure. In other words, the legal system fixes the legal reality on a different plane – from the perspective of its internal and external organization, structural elements, dynamic state, mechanism of action, and efficiency. The legal superstructure emphasizes the determinism of legal phenomena by material factors. It encompasses all of the legal resources at the state’s disposal and encapsulates the whole legal system in society.
The legal system is more expansive, richer, and sophisticated in its substance. This is what might be referred to as a certain mode of production or social system’s legal form.
In theory, the terms “legal superstructure” and “legal system” refer to the same framework of legal reality. However, they cannot be used interchangeably since they refer to two distinct levels of penetration into reality as well as separate features of the same instant in time. The superstructure represents the most fundamental level of the legal system, therefore the most fundamental expressions of legal reality—legal concepts (legal awareness), legal connections, and legal institutions—are the ones that are highlighted here. 1. Law is the core of the legal system, as has previously been stated. Legal norms serve as an integrating and cementing principle because they are mandatory standards of socially essential conduct that depend on the potential of governmental coercion. Without this sort of framework, the legal system might degenerate into a mere collection of components that are not united by a single normative-volitional principle. The degree of their consistency and coordination would be greatly reduced.
This is particularly true of constitutional principles that have secondary importance in the judicial system. All laws are crowned by the Constitution, which also serves as the country’s primary organizational principle for legal control. It determines the sorts of legal actions, their connection, subordination, and methods for resolving problems between them.
The legal system’s required fasteners and ligaments are the standards of law and the legal relations they produce. But law is also a system, and it’s the most disciplined and stable one there is, with certain standards for success. The system’s foundation is represented by this. Legal standards, which are the main building blocks of the legal system and give it strength, are its essential underpinnings. The primary objectives of legal regulation are first and foremost realized by the application of these rules.
Law predominates in the legal system and serves as a unifying force and “point of attraction” for it. In reality, all of its other components are drawn from the law. And whenever it is altered, the whole legal system, or at least many of its components, must also change.
Without a highly developed, democratic, and efficient legal system that can successfully safeguard society’s and its people’ interests, a rule of law state is unimaginable. However, in addition to its protective role, it is also expected to carry out a number of regulatory, organizing, stabilizing, and stimulating tasks that are necessary for ensuring that people lead normal lives, advancing the economy, science, culture, education, and social spheres, and realizing each person’s rights and freedoms.
The ultimate objectives of legal regulation can only be met with the aid of the complete arsenal of legal tools at the state’s disposal, not just a few of them, including legal norms, penalties, subjective rights and responsibilities, legal relations, etc. Therefore, it is crucial that each component of the legal system operates precisely, without hiccups, and in a proactive manner.
They must be synchronized in order for them to complement and reinforce one another since in their individual forms and without connection, they do not produce the intended outcomes. To put it another way, we need to be discussing the complicated (coordinated) legal effects on social connections, their objectives, and their subjects. To effectively capture the pulse of public life, the legal system must sensitively and promptly react to newly developing patterns and symptoms. Additionally, the lawmaker must continually “debug” and enhance it.
The legal system is always developing, yet each of its individual components evolves at a different pace from the others. The system’s guiding principles, which have always existed (even in earlier eras), are some of the permanent, long-lasting features that will continue to exist for a very long time. They offer the entire the required structure and assurance. Ordinarily, “law” simply relates to conventions. However, a distinction must be made between the rules themselves and the organizations and procedures that give them life. The legal system is this wide domain. It is obvious that this system consists of more than a simple collection of rules. A tool of governmental social control is law. If the topic adds behaviour guidelines, he won’t make a mistake.
The broader social system includes the judicial system. In the contemporary globe, there is an astounding diversity of legal systems. Each nation has its own system, and in the USA, each state also has one. A national (federal) system tops it all off. There isn’t a single set of law systems that are perfect in every way. However, this does not imply that all legal systems are completely distinct from one another.
In particular, the present Russian legal system is structured on a federal basis, much like the American one. Each republic, as well as the other subjects of the Federation, has a unique legal structure with regional norms and institutions as well as local features. In the former Soviet republics, which are now independent nations, they have developed their own legal systems. On the basis of a need for all international law and the unique national features of every country, there is a significant convergence and interpenetration of legal systems in current time.
The widely accepted principles and rules of international law and international treaties of the Russian Federation constitute a fundamental component of its legal system, according to the Russian Federation’s Constitution. This makes sense because of any national legislation. As a result of years of collective experience, thousands of threads are linked to the global. Such contact shows the ways in which the contemporary world is integrating.
Currently, the Russian legal system is going through a challenging phase of construction and growth. It is progressively changing, losing the flaws of the totalitarian government, the distortions, and the layers of the past, and gaining deeper democratic and humanistic characteristics.
CLASSIFICATION OF JURISDICTIONAL SYSTEMS
A phenomena of global civilisation, law has given rise to and is administered by several legal systems. A perspective on law that would enable us to relate the legal system to a particular historical period and region, as well as the national and religious specifics of a particular civilization, is necessary if we are to comprehend legal development as a whole, as a crucial component of the advancement of world culture. A branch of law that studies not only and not so much the internal structure (system) of law, but rather the clarification of the latter’s legal place in the overall context of the legal dimension of mankind based on an analysis of the general and particular in social, political, structural, and special-legal characteristics is required in order to show the relationship between these factors in the development of society and legal regulation in its historical perspective.
Legal growth, its direction, phases, and possibilities are revealed by a comparison of the state-legal institutions using the same name. This comparison, which is based on the comparative historical method of cognition, allows for the identification of the general and specific legal phenomena that exist throughout the world, as well as the stages and trends of their formation and functioning. As a result, the full range of specific national regulation can be reduced to a particular “periodic system” of world law, where the elementary, initial particle is no longer a rule of law but rather an integral national legal system and even a specific national regulation. In the end, all of this is required to improve our comprehension of the nature, laws, origin, and qualities of law.
Comparative law is the field of study that focuses on such legal elements. By using the comparative technique, it is possible to classify or categorize the legal systems of different countries based on a variety of factors. Classification refers to the division of national legal systems into classes (or kinds) in accordance with certain standards. Regarding this, classification (typology) is a crucial method of scientific knowledge that enables, from a different perspective, to reveal both the internal (structural) relationships of law and its relationship with a larger social context, which opens up new opportunities in the study of legal phenomena.
The typology (classification) of legal systems creates a kind of “legal map of the world,” revealing the specifics of the institutions used for legal regulation in certain countries and indicating which legal families legal systems belong to. If the system of law is a kind of “internal map” of national law. Any change to the law, including its theory, must be founded on an understanding of the country legal system’s unique historical, cultural, ideological, and other characteristics. Without this, it is impossible to both perceive the potential for change and to benefit from both one’s own and other people’s experience.
The success of the comparative approach firstly rests on the comparability of legal systems, which is only possible if the nature of the differences—the historical, social, and religious underpinnings of national law—are recognized. Because the whole study of experience would otherwise be based on a solely exterior resemblance of sometimes “untranslatable” legal institutions with the matching mechanical, flat conclusions, this is an essential requirement for scientific comparison and verifiability of results.
The typology of legal systems is approached from several perspectives. Various typological groupings of legal systems may be developed as a result of the categorization, which can be based on ideological, legal, ethical, economic, religious, geographical, and other factors. Types of criteria and combinations of criteria are possible.
As of right now, bases are often employed for categorizing legal systems and they are mostly based on ethno-geographical, technical-legal, and religious-ethical indicators of law. The following legal systems are often differentiated in the contemporary world: national legal systems, legal families, and groupings of legal systems.
The national legal system is a concrete-historical collection of laws (legislation), court procedures, and a nation’s preeminent legal philosophy. A nation’s legal system is a component of that society and exhibits the socioeconomic, political, and cultural traits of that culture. National legal systems behave as a unique, singular phenomena in regard to families and groupings of legal systems. There are now over 200 national legal systems in existence.
It is possible to complete significant educational, cognitive, and practical jurisdictional duties as a result of the phenomena of the legal system. The qualifications of a lawyer, as well as his ability and opportunity to work within a particular country’s legal culture, are only formed by a thorough understanding of the institutions of objective and subjective right, the structure of legislation, legal ideology and psychology, the mentality of society, and legal practice.
A specific degree of a society’s legal life, feeling of justice, access to legal information, etc. is attested to by the existence of legal phenomena in their systematic, conceptual arrangement. As a result, far from all governments have created unique, integrated, and legal-cultural systems that serve as a repository for the development of moral principles for human civilization as a whole.
The term “legal family” refers to a group of national legal systems that have a similar source, legal structure, and development history. The following legal families may be identified in line with these standards: common law, Romano-Germanic, typically traditional, Muslim, Hindu (Hindu law), and Slavic. There are several typological divisions of families of national law in the literature since none of the categories of legal families are comprehensive for the legal systems of the globe. The originality legal family in the aforementioned categorization is based on the types of its sources: legal, spiritual (religion, ethics, etc.), and cultural-historical. The delineation of legal families may favor one of these characteristics over the others. As a result, the fundamental distinction between the common law family and the Romano-Germanic family is typically seen to be the form, list, and hierarchy of legal sources of law (forms of law). For the Romano-Germanic legal family in particular, law only applies when a specific circumstance is compared to a general norm and a solution is found in it. Norms that have a legislative expression (in the form of a law or a code) are what constitute law in this family.
The primary source of Anglo-Saxon (common) law is judicial precedent, which is a judgment made by a court of a certain level in a particular case that serves as a guide for decisions in related cases by lower courts. More fractional aspects are feasible within the confines of a certain legal family, represented by a specific collection of legal systems.
The legal systems of France, Italy, Belgium, Spain, Switzerland, Portugal, Romania, the law of countries in Latin America, canon (church-catholic) law, and group of german law, which includes the legal systems of Germany, Austria, Hungary, the Scandinavian countries, etc., are all included in the Romano-Germanic legal family. The legal systems of England, the USA, and the former English-speaking colonies of Great Britain are distinct within the Anglo-Saxon legal family. Group Russian law (Russia and its subjects) and Western Slavic law are members of the Slavic legal family.
In conclusion
The current legal system resembles a game of chance. You may succeed and fail at times. No one is actually in charge and no one can foresee whether the little ball will land in the red or the black in any given situation. You succeed, you fail. But as with roulette, you nearly always lose in the end. The design of the roulette wheel, the principles of mathematical probability, and the house regulations all work together to determine the outcomes. ” The market’s rules, the law of contracts, and the government’s ability to alter or break the rules at whim all work together to give the powerful and wealthy what they want in society. What is it about society’s roulette table that makes it certain that you will lose? First and foremost, the huge wealth gaps favor those who can subsidize the educational system, buy and sell political candidates, buy and sell companies, buy and sell people’s labor and services, buy and sell the means of communication. Second, it is the “checks and balances” system, where radical new changes (like universal free healthcare or broad environmental protections) can be killed in committee, vetoed by one legislative body or the president, interpreted to death by the Supreme Court, or passed by Congress but not implemented by the president. The infrequent triumphs in this system could lessen the suffering caused by economic injustice. Additionally, they demonstrate the value of dissent and raise even more futuristic possibilities. Additionally, they keep you engaged throughout the game, give you a sense of justice, and stop you from losing your cool and causing havoc. It is a well designed system that keeps things as they are while allowing for some change.
