Types of Law: Key Features

Law is an important and complex social phenomenon. The historical types of law emphasize its deep value for the entire process of evolution. After all, they prove that law originated in the distant days of ancient antiquity. In modern society, every self-respecting citizen should know the basic types of law.

Key Definitions

Law is a system of compulsory norms of behavior for the whole society, which are coercive, established and authorized by the forces of the state.

Objective law is a set of generally binding and formally defined legal norms that the state forms and provides in order to regulate relations in society.

Subjective law is a measure of legally permissible behavior aimed at satisfying the personal interests of a citizen.

The concept of the type of law is a complex of the most important signs of law that appeared in a certain era.

Classifications of Law

According to Professor Leistom O.E. The right is divided into the following types:

• estate;
• social;
• formal.

S.I. Arkhipov puts forward five classification criteria:

• general genesis;
• structural unity;
• community of sources;
• commonality of signs;
• unity of terminology.

Signs of law

You can distinguish law from other social norms by its characteristic features:

1. Generally binding. It is understood that only law is a social norm binding on each member of the society living in the territory of a particular state. Thanks to this feature, the right has the opportunity to make social life unified and sustainable. As for other social norms, they are also mandatory, but only for a certain group of the population.
2. Formal certainty. Within the framework of this feature, legal acts are not just someone’s ideas or thoughts, this is a strict reality embodied in the form of laws, decrees, decrees, instructions. Thanks to this, the law is able to accurately reflect the requirements that people must observe in the process of their behavior.
3. Enforcement through coercive power of the state. Types of human rights according to this attribute in the case of involuntary execution entail state penalties.
4. Repeated application. In fact, legal norms are inexhaustible, since they are applied in an unlimited number of different situations.
5. Equity of the content of law. The right, first of all, is aimed at expressing the general or personal will of a citizen. Its main purpose is to assert the primacy of the principles of justice among the population.

Typology of law

The typology of law is its specific classification. Types of legal systems are formed through several approaches:

1. The combination of formational and civilizational approaches.
2. An approach based on signs of a geographical, national-historical, special legal, religious and other kind.

The formation approach is characterized by socio-economic characteristics. The type of production relations in this case is a decisive element of social development. It is on its basis that types of law are formed. In total, with this approach there are four of them. The historical types of law are slaveholding, feudal, bourgeois and socialist.

In the framework of the civilizational approach, the following three types of law are distinguished:

1. Ancient states.
2. Medieval states.
3. Modern states.

According to the approach based on religious, geographical and other types, the following types of law are distinguished:

1. National legal system. By it is meant a certain historically formed set of rights, practical legal activity and ideology prevailing on the territory of a particular state.
2. Legal family. It is characterized as a group of legal families, united due to common sources, structure and historical path. There are three legal families: Roman-German, Anglo-American and traditional religious.

Slave ownership

Slaveholding law is defined as the will of slaveholders elevated to the law. It is endowed with the following features:

• The slave owner has no restrictions on his actions towards slaves.
• The free population is not equal to each other.
• Men surpass women, father surpass children.
• Private property is the central institution of law. An attempt on her is punishable by death.
• The prevailing role is played by legal custom.
• Customary law does not have written support.
• Judicial and administrative precedent is the basis of all the foundations of slaveholding law.

Feudal law

Feudal law is the will of the masters, elevated to the law. The list of its main features:

• He defends large land holdings and feudal lords as individuals.
• It supports the inequality between classes and classes of the population.
• Supports serfdom.
• Gentlemen are not burdened with observing the types of rules of law.
• There is unlimited arbitrariness on the part of the masters with respect to the peasant layer of the population.
• The right is not divided into private and public.
• Settlement of disputes by force shall be considered admissible.
• The church has a significant place in feudal law.

Bourgeois law

Bourgeois law is the will of the bourgeoisie, elevated to law. It is characterized by:

• Law is secular in nature, that is, it has nothing to do with religion.
• Legal technology is at a high level.
• The branch system of law becomes ramified.
• Law is clearly divided into private and public.
• Law is the main source of law.
• The social type of law begins to develop.
• The law recognizes independent secular marriage.
• The role of the husband in family relationships is losing its former strength.
• Punishment entails political crimes, not religious beliefs.
• Unions become legal.
• The judiciary becomes a separate branch, as does the executive branch.

Socialist law

Social law is of a different nature and has different concepts at each stage of its development. The first stage is a step towards the creation of a socialist state. This stage is inherent in the will of the proletariat, labor intelligentsia and peasants, elevated to the law.

The second stage falls on the stage of already developed socialism, when the will of the whole people is elevated to the law. Socialist law has the following characteristic features:

• Equality, humanism, justice and democracy are proclaimed.
• The ownership of power by the people is fixed.
• The first stage is characterized by unequal law. The advantage is given to the proletariat and its classes.
• At the second stage, its nationwide is announced.
• It is declared subordinate to the state, but the theoretical foundations are not implemented in practice.

Theories of Law

The formation of law is influenced by many different factors. This situation leads to the creation of a variety of approaches to the study and derivation of various theories of law.

It is worth noting that each individual theory has the property of exaggerating one of the parties to the law, striking at others. Their forms change during the development process, and as a result, theories of law have reached the present day in the following form:

1. Theory of natural law. It began to emerge in ancient times. The place of origin of its origins is called Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. The morality and justice of the law inherent in man by nature, tried to identify and describe more Socrates and Plato. The theory of natural law acquired a fully formed form in the 17-18 centuries in the framework of the works of Hobbes, Radishchev, Locke and others. Their works distinguish between law and law. The foundations of the theory were laid by Grotius, Didro, Russo and others. The essence of natural law determines the fact that there is not only positive created by the state, but also natural law above it. They are the same for the entire population and are given to him at birth. Their implementation is mandatory, since the source is not the state, but the very nature of man.
2. Historical School of Law. It took shape in the 18-19 centuries by the forces of Hugo, Savigny, Puchta. In this theory, by law is meant the product of the spiritual state of the people, the legal convictions of society. The law has a national character and does not depend on the subjective opinion of the state.
3. Theory of normative law. It spread to the people in the first third of the twentieth century by the forces of Kiedzen, Stammer, Novgorodtsev. Kelsen described law as a pyramid built according to a hierarchy, in which the “basic norm” dominates. He called it the constitution. The basis and the first step of the pyramid are contracts, administrative regulations, judges' opinions and other individual acts. Legally more powerful steps provide their legitimacy to the lower ones. Legal theory should not depend on ideology. It is effective within a stable state and affirms the primacy of the rights and freedoms of the individual.
4. Sociological theory of law. Refers to the second half of the nineteenth century. The ancestors are Erlich, Muromets, Kantorovich and others. Calls for openness and freedom of lawmaking of judges. The right is not considered a norm approved by law. Particular attention is paid to law, as a legal relationship between people. A judge is considered the creator of law.
5. The psychological theory of law. It arose in the 20th century thanks to the works of Ross, Petrazhitsky, Tarde. It divides the right into two parts - positive and intuitive.
6. Marxist theory of law. Refers to the second half of the nineteenth century. The founders are Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Vladimir Lenin. Law is defined as the will of the class dominant in the economic and political spheres. The right is completely determined by the state.

Functions of law

The functions of law include:

• economic;
• political;
• educational;
• ideological;
• humanistic;
• regulatory;
• protective.

Each of them plays a huge role in the creation of the rule of law.