What Makes Socialist Legal Systems Socialist?

Abstract

The author re-examines in this article the foundations for the traditional classifications of legal systems in comparative legal studies and suggests the usefulness of a kaleidoscopic perception of legal classifications and change, commencing from the revolutions of 1917 down to the present with special reference to the enduring impact on Asian legal systems. China, Mongolia, Vietnam, and Laos, together with Cuba and Ethiopia, are arguably the surviving systems of the socialist legal tradition – few in number but massive in population. Various perspectives are suggested for classifying legal systems. None are regarded as mutually exclusive; that is, a single national legal system may display features of several familial characteristics. A substantial list of possible characteristics of socialist legal systems is given, as is a lengthy enumeration of possible categories of families of legal systems: socialist/totalitarian, technocratic, formalist, transitional, RomanoGermanic, mixed, Slavic, Eurasian, among others. With respect to Asian socialist legal systems, the article asks whether it is descriptively and analytically more correct to, for example, describe China as a “socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics” or a “Chinese legal system with socialist characteristics”. In either event, or a modification of the juxtaposition, the question remains: what factors make China one or the other? Whatever the answer at any given moment in time, a kaleidoscopic perception of legal change and movement looks less for eternal verities than for constant readjustment, constant re-evaluation of the balance of factors that comprise a legal system, and the development of additional relevant criteria that help identify the forces at work in legal development.