The Application of Soviet Law

Abstract

It is the general rule for Soviet legal literature to state that the application of law must not be formal and dogmatic, but creative and dialectical. However, sufficient clarity does not yet exist as to the permissible limits, from the standpoint of the principle of socialist legality, of the creative element in the application of law. Moreover, some writers even deny, in essence, the admissibility of any creativity whatever in the application of law, holding that to be a violation of legality. Thus, A. I. Trusov, in support of the notion that the application of law is a component part of the process of judicial acquisition of knowledge, draws a complete analogy between the law and any other standard of measurement employed in human society (the meter, kilogram, etc.) and, on that basis, comes to the conclusion that the results of the application of law should be just as precise as times two makes four. (1)