Общинное право

Abstract

The following article examines the problem of conceptualizing the socio-normative order, which is not directly related to State activities and in most cases is referred to in legal science by the terms “legal customs” and “common law”. By analyzing the conventional theory of “common” law, the author seeks to contemplate this concept from a new perspective, identifying a series of theoretical and epistemological problems associated with it. This reveals that the most common definition of common law is quite contradictory, with the ambiguity of this concept and its unjustifiably wide application impoverishing the content. At the same time, it would be incorrect to deem that the laws of pre-state societies and state-organized societies that maintained legal institutions independent of the state “consist” mainly of customs, which would, in turn, be the result of “multiple repetitions” of certain (relatively random) actions. Using fundamentally different principles for the classification of law, the author does not base himself on formal classification criteria, but on the nature of those social forces that guarantee the fulfilment of legal norms. From this basis, he introduces and grounds the concept of community law. The article thus demonstrates that this concept is more relevant to a definition of law which is not based on the will of state power. The reach of this concept is entirely compatible with the set of manifestations that it designates, and its use helps to avoid the contradictions and dubious connotations that arise from the use of the term “common law”.