Types of law: the main features

Law is an important and complex publicphenomenon. Historical types of law emphasize its deep value for the whole process of evolution. After all, they prove that the right was born even in the ancient times of antiquity. In modern society, every citizen should respect the basic types of law.

Basic Definitions

The law is a system of mandatory norms for the whole society, which are compulsory, are established and sanctioned by the state.

Objective law is a set of generally binding and formally defined legal norms that the state forms and provides for the purpose of regulating relations in society.

Subjective law is a gauge 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 features of law that have appeared in a certain era.

Classification of law

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

• class;
• social;
• formal.

S.I. Arkhipov puts forward five criteria for classification:

• general genesis;
• structural unity;
• common sources;
• common features;
• unity of terminology.

Signs of law

Differentiate the right from other social norms by its characteristic features:

1. The universality. It means that only law is a social norm obligatory for every member of society living in the territory of a particular state. Due 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 definiteness. As part of this feature, legal acts are not just someone's ideas or thoughts, they are a strict reality, embodied in the form of laws, decrees, decrees, instructions. Thanks to this, the right is able to accurately reflect the requirements that people must observe in the course of their behavior.
3. Exercise due to the compulsory power of the state. Types of human rights in accordance with this characteristic in the event of involuntary execution entail state penalties.
4. Multiplicity of application. In fact, legal norms are inexhaustible, since they are used in an unlimited number of different situations.
5. Fairness of the content of the law. The law, first of all, is aimed at expressing the common or personal will of a citizen. Its main purpose is to affirm 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 totality of the formational and civilizational approaches.
2. An approach based on signs of geographical, national-historical, special-legal, religious and other types.

The formational approach is characterized bysocio-economic characteristics. The type of production relations in this case is the decisive element of social development. It is on its basis that types of law are formed. There are four in total for this approach. The historical types of law are slave, feudal, bourgeois and socialist.

Within 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, geographic and other types, these types of law are distinguished:

1. National legal system. It is understood as a certain historically formed set of rights, practical legal activity and ideology of the state dominant in the territory.
2. Legal family. Characterized as a group of legal families, united due to common sources, structure and historical path. There are three legal families: Romano-Germanic, Anglo-American and traditional religious.

The slave-owning right

Slaveholding law is defined as the will of slave owners, built into law. It is endowed with the following features:

• The slaveholder has no restrictions on his actions towards slaves.
• The free population is not equal to each other.
• Men are superior to women, fathers are superior to children.
• Private property is the central institution of law. The attempt on her is punishable by death.
• The prevailing role is played by the legal custom.
• Customary law does not have written reinforcement.
• The judicial and administrative precedent is the basis of all the principles of slaveholding law.

Feudal law

The will of lords, elevated to the law, is called feudal right. The list of its main features:

• He speaks in defense of large landed estates and feudal lords as individuals.
• Maintains inequality between classes and classes of the population.
• He supports serfdom.
• Gentlemen are not burdened with observing types of rules of law.
• There is unlimited arbitrariness on the part of the masters towards the peasant stratum of the population.
• The right is not divided into private and public.
• Resolution of disputes with the use of force are considered admissible.
• The church occupies an essential place in feudal law.

Bourgeois law

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

• The law is secular, that is, it has nothing to do with religion.
• Legal technology is at a high level.
• The branch system of law becomes ramified.
• The right 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 a separate secular marriage.
• The role of the husband in family relationships loses its former strength.
• Punishment involves political crimes, not religious beliefs.
• Trade unions are becoming lawful.
• The judiciary becomes a separate branch, as well as the executive branch.

Socialist Law

Social law is of a different nature and hasdifferent concepts at each stage of their development. The first stage is a step towards the creation of a socialist state. This stage is inherent in the will of the proletariat, the working intelligentsia and peasants, built into the law.

The second stage is the stage of already developed socialism, when the will of the whole people is built into the law. Socialist law has the following characteristics:

• Equality, humanism, justice and democracy are being proclaimed.
• The power of the people is consolidated.
• The first stage is inherent unequal right. The advantage is given to the proletariat and the classes adjacent to it.
• At the second stage, it is declared public.
• Declared obey the state, but the theoretical basis is not fulfilled in practice.

Theory of Law

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

It is worth noting that each individual theory hasthe property of exaggerating one of the parties to the law, striking at others. Their forms change in the process of development, and as a result, until now, the theory of law has come in the following form:

1. Theory of natural law. It began to emerge in ancient times. The birthplace of its origins is called Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. The morality and justice of law, inherent in human nature, tried to identify and describe Socrates and Plato. The theory of natural law was fully formed in the 17th and 18th centuries in the framework of the works of Hobbes, Radishchev, Locke and others. Their writings draw a line between law and law. The foundations of the theory were laid by Grotius, Diderot, Rousseau, and others. The essence of natural law is the fact that there is not only a positive state created by the state, but also the natural law that stands above it. They are the same for the whole 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. Formed in the 18-19 centuries by the forces of Hugo, Savigny, Puhta. In this theory, by law is understood the product of the spiritual state of the people, the legal beliefs of society. Law has a national character and does not depend on the subjective opinion of the state.
3. The theory of normative law. It spread to the people in the first third of the twentieth century by the forces of Kedzen, Stammer, Novgorodtsev. Kelsen described the law as a pyramid, built according to the 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, opinions of judges and other acts of an individual character. More powerful from a legal point of view, provide their validity for the lower. Legal theory should not depend on ideology. It is effective in the framework of 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 - Erlich, Muromets, Kantorovich and others. Calls for openness and freedom of lawmaking for judges. Law is not considered a norm, approved by law. Special attention is paid to law as a legal relationship between people. The judge is considered the creator of the law.
5. Psychological theory of law. It originated in the 20th century thanks to the works of Ross, Petrazhitsky, Tard. 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 ruling class in the economic and political spheres. The law 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 a rule-of-law state.