Legitimacy of Law in the Context of Competition of Identities and Multiculturalism

Abstract

The article analyses the factors and preconditions that complicate the law legitimation processesin the context of global migration and the modern states’ multiculturalism policies based on the statist- paternalistic approach, which gives rise to social parasitism and conf licts, as well as to the identities competition, particularly the one of the religious-ethnical and legal identities. The legal identity differs from the religious one in the fact that the former is oriented to the legal system and society as a whole, and the latter - to a part of the society, which may give rise to a social conf lict and confrontation of different communities and the whole society. In order to overcome this kind of competition, the author substantiates the necessity of methodology and practices based on the recognition of a person’s ability to develop and assimilate the values and senses inherent to the law, to use them for self-understanding, personal fulf illment and achieving his o her legal identity - that is, the legal characteristic which excludes the criminal misbehavior as a factor infringing upon a person’s integrity and self hood, and, at the same time, a factor which provides the legal order stability and legitimacy of the law.