Comparing laws and comparing legal cultures

Csaba Varga

doi:doi:10.12737/394

Comparing laws and comparing legal cultures

Published в Advances in Law Studies · Volume 1, Issue 1, 2013 · Pages 12–17 · Rubrics: Theory and history of law and state; history of the theories of law and state

DOI 10.12737/394

Received: 06.05.1905 Accepted: 01.05.2013 Published: 01.05.2013 Language of publication: RUS

Authors

Csaba Varga

ABSTRACT

The author turns to the phenomena of legal culture not only in relation with interest to theory but as a practical matter, stressing that in cause in Central and Eastern Europe (as in Latin America and Japan informationes as well) there is no rapid or simple recipes of coercive westernization.

KEYWORDS

comparative law legal culture

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Article

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from 12 to 17

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Published

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Russian

Keywords:

comparative law, legal culture

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1. Developmental Background: Understandings and Disciplines of Law

The line of development that led from the movement of “Comparative Law” to the study of “Comparative Legal Cultures” can from the very beginning be inferred from the changes in scholarly problem-sensitivity and the ways we approach law. In the early 1900’s it became more and more inevitable that some change would open up and internationalise the series of narrow-mindedly domestic concepts of law then hopelessly confined within exclusively national boundaries, which, leaving the positivism of the various countries untouched, eventually re-launched the long suspended communication among the countries on the European continent. The action proved to be successful: after all, by that time comparison had become a sine qua non of doctrinal research. However, considering that positivism is necessarily based upon posited rules made up as a textual body of the law, scholars soon had to face the dilemma in terms of which most diverse national regulations at a comparable level reach more or less similar/comparable results as implemented in practice in most parts of the world, research also had to concentrate on components outside “the law”. This turn has been necessitated by the fact too that law, if conceived of merely as a rule, excludes any genuine in-depth comparativism from the outset, because the classical understanding of comparative law universalises one of the many potential/concurrent manifestations of the law, while it is unable to explain either degenerations (e.g., of a dictatorship, if built on openly ideological and therefore fake institutionalisation) within its own realm of Civil Law or the very construction and operation of any arrangement differing from its own one (of Common Law and any further item in the worlds map of laws).

For the greatest change in the history of law occurred when it became objectified as a text through being embodied by a written form as reduced from ius to lex. This indeed meant a most conspicuous change, by providing law with properties easy to identify through external signs regarding the sources of the law. With the help of such formal signs, one can unambiguously define where the ultimate identity of law — the core of “juridicity”— lies and how a judge can eventually reach a response in “the law”. In terms of such a definition, western legal regimes are divided by the answer whether, by a written text, the law is mostly referred to or indicated (as in Common Law) or exclusively embodied (as in Civil Law). It is to be noted that within Civil Law, statutory positivism prevailed in Western Europe from the early 19th century until the end of the Second World War, while in Eastern Europe it safely survived the collapse of communism. However, trends like “the law of reason” (cultivated as a substitute to natural law) and “free law” (making law pragmatic and socially responsive) were alive to loosen limitations imposed by statutory positivism in Western and Central Europe from the late 19th century, while the rigorous austerity of a late replica of the 19th century western pattern, called “socialist normativism”, began to relax in the Soviet world empire from the late 1960’s only [1]. This specific approach is the basis for continental legal conception to such a depth that even endeavours to loosen it (with post-modern heralding of its downfall) can only formulate their claims with the simultaneous re-assertion of its foundational solidity, thus far unbroken. Accordingly, Civil Law as such is defined throughout by the reduction of ius (as the core element of juridicity) to lex (as a set of posited texts), that is, by the embodiment of anything legal having been posited by acts of the law and, thereby, by reducing all the complexity of legal processes to an artificial separation between “law-making” and “law-applying”, with an institutional ideology and practice in the background that is alien to either Common Law or the classical Jewish and Islamic, moreover, Asiatic understandings of law [2].

References

1. Konrad Zweigert. Des solutions identiques par des voies différentes (Quelques observations en matière de droit comparé) Revue internationale de Droit comparé XVIII (1968) 1, pp. 5-18.

2. Csaba Varga Codification as a Sociohistorical Phe-nomenon [1991] (Budapest: Szent István Társulat 2011) & http://drcsabavarga.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/varga-codification-as-a-socio-historical-phenomenon-1991/, chs. V-VI.

3. Csaba Varga. Meeting Points between the Traditions of English-American Common Law and Continental-French Civil Law (Developments and Experience of Postmodernity in Canada) Acta Juridica Hungarica 44 (2003) 1-2, pp. 21-44.

4. Peter G. Sack ‘Law & Custom: Reflections on the Relations be-tween English Law and the English Language’ Rechtstheorie 18 (1987) 4, pp. 421-436

5. Csaba Varga, “Comparative Legal Cultures?” in Porivnyal'ne pravoznavstvo Suchasniy stan i persrektivi rozvitku: Zbirnik naukovikh prats' / red. Yu.S. Shemshuchenko, I.S. Gritsenko & M.B. Buchko, upor. O.V. Kresin (Kk v, 2010), pp. 35-40

6. “Differing Mentalities of Civil Law and Common Law? The Issue of Logic in Law” Porіvnyal'no-pravovі doslіdzhennya [Kyiv] 2009/1 & http://www.nbuv.gov.ua/portal/Soc_Gum/Ppd/2009_1.pdf, pp. 29-35.

7. Prozessflut? Studien zur Prozesst tigkeit europ ischer Gerichte in histor-ischen Zeitreihen und im Rechtsvergleich, hrsg. Erhard Blankenburg (Köln: Bundesanzeiger, 1988) 333 pp. [Rechtstatsachenforschung] and Erhard Blanken-burg Patterns of Legal Culture The Netherlands Compared to Neighboring Germany (Amsterdam: Unversiteit van Amsterdam Duitsland Instituut, 1997) pp. 52 [Duitsland cahier 1/97].

8. Entstehung und Wandel rechtlicher Traditionen hrsg. Wolfgang Fikentscher, Herbert Franke & Oskar Köhler (Freiburg & Mnchen: Verlag Karl Alber, 1980) pp. 820 [Ver ffentlichungen des “Instituts für Historische Antropologie E.V.” 2].

9. Comparative Legal Cultures ed. Csaba Varga (Aldershot, Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney: Dartmouth & New York: The New York University Press, 1992) xxiv + 614 pp. [The International Library of Essays in Law & Legal Theory: Legal Cultures 1].

10. European Legal Cultures ed. Volkmar Gessner, Armin Hoeland & Csaba Varga (Aldershot, Brookfield USA, Singapore, Sydney: Dartmouth, 1996) xviii + 567 pp. [Tempus Textbook Series on European Law and European Legal Cultures I].

11. Comparing Legal Cultures ed. David Nelken (Brookfield, Vt.: Dartmouth, 1997) viii + 274 pp. and Adapting Legal Cultures ed. David Nelken & Johannes Feest (Oxford & Portland, Oregon: Hart Publishing, 2001) x + 282 pp. [O ati Inter-national Series in Law and Sociology].

12. Csaba Varga Theory of the Judicial Process The Establishment of Facts [1995] 2nd ed. (Budapest: Szent István Társulat, 2011) viii + 308 pp. & URL: http://drcsabavarga.wordpress.com/2012/03/13/varga-theory-of-the-judicial-process-theestablishment-of-facts-19952011/

13. Csaba Varga “Law, Legal Process and the Judicial Mind” Possiyskiy yuridicheskoy zhurnal [Ekaterinburg] 2011/4, pp. 5-13 & URL: http://electronic.ruzh.org/?q=node/260

14. András Karácsony ”A jog mint kulturális jelenség” [Law as a cultural phe-nome-non] Jogelméleti Szemle 2002/4. URL: http://jesz.ajk.elte.hu/karacsony11.html.

15. Dirk Baecker Wozu Kultur? 2nd enl. ed. (Berlin: Kadmos Kulturverlag, 2001) 203 pp.

16. Csaba Varga. Anthropological Jurisprudence? Leopold Pospíšil and the Comparative Study of Legal Cultures’ in Law in East and West On the Occasion of the 30th Anniversary of the Institute of Comparative Law (Tokyo: Waseda Univer-sity Press, 1988), pp. 265-285 {reprint in his Law and Philosophy Selected Papers in Legal Theory (Budapest: ELTE “Comparative Legal Cultures” Project, 1994) xi + 530 pp. [Philosophiae Iuris] & URL: http://drcsabavarga.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/vargalaw-and-philosophy---papers-in-legal-theory-1994/, pp. 437-457.

17. James A. Gardner Legal Imperialism American Lawyers and Foreign Aid in Latin America (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1980) xii + 401 pp.

18. Csaba Varga Jogrendszerek, jogi gondolkodásmódok az európai egységesülés perspektívájában (Magyar körkép - európai uniós sszefüggésben) [Legal systems, legal mentalities in the perspective of European unification: Hungarian overview - in an European Union context] (Budapest: Szent István T rsulat, 2009) 282 pp. [Jogfilozófiák].

19. Jen Szcs “The Three Historical Regions of Europe” Acta Historica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 29 (1983) 2-4, pp. 131-184 {reprinted, in parts, in European Legal Cultures [note 9], pp. 14-48}

20. Samuel P. Huntington “The Clash of Civilizations?” Foreign Affairs 72 (Summer 1993) 3, pp. 22-49.

21. William E. Butler “Renaissance of Slavonic Law?” in Foundations of Comparative Law Methods and Typologies, ed. William E. Butler, O.V. Kresin & Iu.S. Shemshuchenko (London: Wildy, Simmonds & Hill, 2011) 354 pp. [JCL Studies in Comparative Law 4], pp. 331-336

22. E.O. Kharitonov & O.I. Kharitonova “Classification of European Systems of Private Law”

23. V.I. Lafitskiy Sravnitel'noe pravovedenie v obrazakh prava I-II (Moskva: Statut, 2010).

24. Csaba Varga, Transition to Rule of Law On the Democratic Transformation in Hungary (Budapest: ELTE “Comparative Legal Cultures” Project, 1995) 190 pp. [Philosophiae

25. Iuris] & URL: http://drcsabavarga.wordpress.com/2010/10/24/transition-to-rule-of-law-on-the-democratic-transformationin-hungary-1995/

26. Transition? To Rule of Law? Constitutionalism and Transitional Justice Challenged in Central & Eastern Europe (Pom z: Kr ter, 2008) 292 pp. [PoLíSz sorozat RIOR

27. Law (2013) Vol. 1. Issue 1: 12-17

28. könyvei 7] & URL: http://drcsabavarga.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/varga-transition-to-rule-of-law---constitutionalism-and-transitional-justice-challenged-in-central-andeastern-europe-2008/

29. Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels Die deutsche Ideologie Kritik der neuesten deutschen Philosophie in ihren Repräsen tanten Feuerbach, B. Bauer u. Stirner u. des deutsches Sozialismus in seinen verschiedenen Propheten, 1845-1846 [Volksausgabe der

30. ersten ungek rzten vollständigen Erstausgabe der Marx-Engels-Verlag im Auftrag der Marx-Engels-Lenin-Institut Moskau] hrsg. V. Adoratskij (Wien & Berlin: Verlag für Literatur u. Politik, 1932) xix + 636 pp.

31. Vladimir Shlapentokh Russia Privatization and Illegalization of Social and Political Life (Michigan State University Department of Sociology, 25 Sept. 1995) 44 pp. [NATO: CND {Chris Donally} (95) 459]

32. Csaba Varga “Verkhovenstvo prava ili dilemma ideala: sadovodstvo protiv mekhanizatsii” in: “Problemy modernizatsii pravovoy sistemy sovremennogo rossiyskogo obshchestva”. Mezhdunarodnaya nauchnaya konferentsiya (g. Krasnoyarsk, 30 sentyabrya - 1 oktyabrya) / Pod red. V.M. Shafarov, (Krasnoyarsk: Tsentr informatsii, 2011), pp. 14-26 & URL: http://law.sfu-kras.ru/files/users/problevs_modern_1.pdf

33. Armin H land “ volution du droit en Europe centrale et orientale: assisteton une renaissance du “Law and Development”?” Droit et Société (1993), № 25, pp. 467-488 {summarily translated in European Legal Cultures [note 9], pp. 482-484}

34. Claus Offe “Capitalism by Democratic Design? Democratic Theory Facing the Triple Transition in East Central Europe” Social Research 58 (1991) 4, pp. 865-892.

35. Csaba Varga “Transformation to Rule of Law from No-Law: Societal Contexture of the Democratic Transition in Central and Eastern Europe” Connecticut Journal of International Law 8 (1993) 2, pp. 487-505.

36. Thomas Waelde & James L. Gunderson “Legislative Reform in Transition Economies: Western Transplants: A Short-Cut to Social Market Economy Status?” International and Comparative Law Quarterly 43 (1994) 2, pp. 347-378.

37. Gianmaria Ajani “La circulation des mod les juridiques dans le droit post-socialiste” Revue internationale de Droit comparé 46 (1994) 4, pp. 1087-1105 / “By Chance and Prestige: Legal Transplants in Russia and Eastern Europe” The American Journal of Comparative Law LXIII (1995) 1, pp. 93-117.

38. Konrad Zweigert. Des solutions identiques par des voies différentes (Quelques observations en matière de droit comparé) Revue internationale de Droit comparé XVIII (1968) 1, pp. 5-18.

39. Csaba Varga Codification as a Sociohistorical Phe-nomenon [1991] (Budapest: Szent István Társulat 2011) & http://drcsabavarga.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/varga-codification-as-a-socio-historical-phenomenon-1991/, chs. V-VI.

40. Csaba Varga. Meeting Points between the Traditions of English-American Common Law and Continental-French Civil Law (Developments and Experience of Postmodernity in Canada) Acta Juridica Hungarica 44 (2003) 1-2, pp. 21-44.

41. Peter G. Sack ‘Law & Custom: Reflections on the Relations be-tween English Law and the English Language’ Rechtstheorie 18 (1987) 4, pp. 421-436

42. Csaba Varga, “Comparative Legal Cultures?” in Porivnyal'ne pravoznavstvo Suchasniy stan i persrektivi rozvitku: Zbirnik naukovikh prats' / red. Yu.S. Shemshuchenko, I.S. Gritsenko & M.B. Buchko, upor. O.V. Kresin (Kk v, 2010), pp. 35-40

43. “Differing Mentalities of Civil Law and Common Law? The Issue of Logic in Law” Porіvnyal'no-pravovі doslіdzhennya [Kyiv] 2009/1 & http://www.nbuv.gov.ua/portal/Soc_Gum/Ppd/2009_1.pdf, pp. 29-35.

44. Prozessflut? Studien zur Prozesst tigkeit europ ischer Gerichte in histor-ischen Zeitreihen und im Rechtsvergleich, hrsg. Erhard Blankenburg (Köln: Bundesanzeiger, 1988) 333 pp. [Rechtstatsachenforschung] and Erhard Blanken-burg Patterns of Legal Culture The Netherlands Compared to Neighboring Germany (Amsterdam: Unversiteit van Amsterdam Duitsland Instituut, 1997) pp. 52 [Duitsland cahier 1/97].

45. Entstehung und Wandel rechtlicher Traditionen hrsg. Wolfgang Fikentscher, Herbert Franke & Oskar Köhler (Freiburg & Mnchen: Verlag Karl Alber, 1980) pp. 820 [Ver ffentlichungen des “Instituts für Historische Antropologie E.V.” 2].

46. Comparative Legal Cultures ed. Csaba Varga (Aldershot, Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney: Dartmouth & New York: The New York University Press, 1992) xxiv + 614 pp. [The International Library of Essays in Law & Legal Theory: Legal Cultures 1].

47. European Legal Cultures ed. Volkmar Gessner, Armin Hoeland & Csaba Varga (Aldershot, Brookfield USA, Singapore, Sydney: Dartmouth, 1996) xviii + 567 pp. [Tempus Textbook Series on European Law and European Legal Cultures I].

48. Comparing Legal Cultures ed. David Nelken (Brookfield, Vt.: Dartmouth, 1997) viii + 274 pp. and Adapting Legal Cultures ed. David Nelken & Johannes Feest (Oxford & Portland, Oregon: Hart Publishing, 2001) x + 282 pp. [O ati Inter-national Series in Law and Sociology].

49. Csaba Varga Theory of the Judicial Process The Establishment of Facts [1995] 2nd ed. (Budapest: Szent István Társulat, 2011) viii + 308 pp. & URL: http://drcsabavarga.wordpress.com/2012/03/13/varga-theory-of-the-judicial-process-theestablishment-of-facts-19952011/

50. Csaba Varga “Law, Legal Process and the Judicial Mind” Possiyskiy yuridicheskoy zhurnal [Ekaterinburg] 2011/4, pp. 5-13 & URL: http://electronic.ruzh.org/?q=node/260

51. András Karácsony ”A jog mint kulturális jelenség” [Law as a cultural phe-nome-non] Jogelméleti Szemle 2002/4. URL: http://jesz.ajk.elte.hu/karacsony11.html.

52. Dirk Baecker Wozu Kultur? 2nd enl. ed. (Berlin: Kadmos Kulturverlag, 2001) 203 pp.

53. Csaba Varga. Anthropological Jurisprudence? Leopold Pospíšil and the Comparative Study of Legal Cultures’ in Law in East and West On the Occasion of the 30th Anniversary of the Institute of Comparative Law (Tokyo: Waseda Univer-sity Press, 1988), pp. 265-285 {reprint in his Law and Philosophy Selected Papers in Legal Theory (Budapest: ELTE “Comparative Legal Cultures” Project, 1994) xi + 530 pp. [Philosophiae Iuris] & URL: http://drcsabavarga.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/vargalaw-and-philosophy---papers-in-legal-theory-1994/, pp. 437-457.

54. James A. Gardner Legal Imperialism American Lawyers and Foreign Aid in Latin America (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1980) xii + 401 pp.

55. Csaba Varga Jogrendszerek, jogi gondolkodásmódok az európai egységesülés perspektívájában (Magyar körkép - európai uniós sszefüggésben) [Legal systems, legal mentalities in the perspective of European unification: Hungarian overview - in an European Union context] (Budapest: Szent István T rsulat, 2009) 282 pp. [Jogfilozófiák].

56. Jen Szcs “The Three Historical Regions of Europe” Acta Historica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 29 (1983) 2-4, pp. 131-184 {reprinted, in parts, in European Legal Cultures [note 9], pp. 14-48}

57. Samuel P. Huntington “The Clash of Civilizations?” Foreign Affairs 72 (Summer 1993) 3, pp. 22-49.

58. William E. Butler “Renaissance of Slavonic Law?” in Foundations of Comparative Law Methods and Typologies, ed. William E. Butler, O.V. Kresin & Iu.S. Shemshuchenko (London: Wildy, Simmonds & Hill, 2011) 354 pp. [JCL Studies in Comparative Law 4], pp. 331-336

59. E.O. Kharitonov & O.I. Kharitonova “Classification of European Systems of Private Law”

60. V.I. Lafitskiy Sravnitel'noe pravovedenie v obrazakh prava I-II (Moskva: Statut, 2010).

61. Csaba Varga, Transition to Rule of Law On the Democratic Transformation in Hungary (Budapest: ELTE “Comparative Legal Cultures” Project, 1995) 190 pp. [Philosophiae

62. Iuris] & URL: http://drcsabavarga.wordpress.com/2010/10/24/transition-to-rule-of-law-on-the-democratic-transformationin-hungary-1995/

63. Transition? To Rule of Law? Constitutionalism and Transitional Justice Challenged in Central & Eastern Europe (Pom z: Kr ter, 2008) 292 pp. [PoLíSz sorozat RIOR

64. Law (2013) Vol. 1. Issue 1: 12-17

65. könyvei 7] & URL: http://drcsabavarga.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/varga-transition-to-rule-of-law---constitutionalism-and-transitional-justice-challenged-in-central-andeastern-europe-2008/

66. Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels Die deutsche Ideologie Kritik der neuesten deutschen Philosophie in ihren Repräsen tanten Feuerbach, B. Bauer u. Stirner u. des deutsches Sozialismus in seinen verschiedenen Propheten, 1845-1846 [Volksausgabe der

67. ersten ungek rzten vollständigen Erstausgabe der Marx-Engels-Verlag im Auftrag der Marx-Engels-Lenin-Institut Moskau] hrsg. V. Adoratskij (Wien & Berlin: Verlag für Literatur u. Politik, 1932) xix + 636 pp.

68. Vladimir Shlapentokh Russia Privatization and Illegalization of Social and Political Life (Michigan State University Department of Sociology, 25 Sept. 1995) 44 pp. [NATO: CND {Chris Donally} (95) 459]

69. Csaba Varga “Verkhovenstvo prava ili dilemma ideala: sadovodstvo protiv mekhanizatsii” in: “Problemy modernizatsii pravovoy sistemy sovremennogo rossiyskogo obshchestva”. Mezhdunarodnaya nauchnaya konferentsiya (g. Krasnoyarsk, 30 sentyabrya - 1 oktyabrya) / Pod red. V.M. Shafarov, (Krasnoyarsk: Tsentr informatsii, 2011), pp. 14-26 & URL: http://law.sfu-kras.ru/files/users/problevs_modern_1.pdf

70. Armin H land “ volution du droit en Europe centrale et orientale: assisteton une renaissance du “Law and Development”?” Droit et Société (1993), № 25, pp. 467-488 {summarily translated in European Legal Cultures [note 9], pp. 482-484}

71. Claus Offe “Capitalism by Democratic Design? Democratic Theory Facing the Triple Transition in East Central Europe” Social Research 58 (1991) 4, pp. 865-892.

72. Csaba Varga “Transformation to Rule of Law from No-Law: Societal Contexture of the Democratic Transition in Central and Eastern Europe” Connecticut Journal of International Law 8 (1993) 2, pp. 487-505.

73. Thomas Waelde & James L. Gunderson “Legislative Reform in Transition Economies: Western Transplants: A Short-Cut to Social Market Economy Status?” International and Comparative Law Quarterly 43 (1994) 2, pp. 347-378.

74. Gianmaria Ajani “La circulation des mod les juridiques dans le droit post-socialiste” Revue internationale de Droit comparé 46 (1994) 4, pp. 1087-1105 / “By Chance and Prestige: Legal Transplants in Russia and Eastern Europe” The American Journal of Comparative Law LXIII (1995) 1, pp. 93-117.

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Comparing laws and comparing legal cultures

1. Developmental Background: Understandings and Disciplines of Law

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