Legal Customs Research Articles

VIII. Parakatatheke und letztwillige Verfügungen: Zum Hintergrund von D. 32,37,5

Abstract Parakatatheke and last wills: on the background of D. 32.37.5. Already Hans Julius Wolff refused the idea of a hermetical isolation between Roman law and local (provincial) legal practice in everyday life. Following his trace, this contribution will show that legal intercourse between different classes of provincial populace was far more intensive than generally assumed. Focusing on the period before the Constitutio Antoniniana (212 AD), a detailed exegesis of a unique decision of Scaevola follows. The Roman jurist delivers a paradigmatic case: He settles a dispute in which the Greek formula of parakatatheke was used by a Roman citizen for disposing about his assets on death. In fact, the legal act should be considered ineffective under Roman law. However, Scaevola looked for ways to enforce the claim. Roman law and provincial legal custom: Scaevola’s decision sheds a new light on the creative approach of Roman jurisdiction regarding foreign legal thoughts.

Иеремия Бентам и Россия: историко-правовой очерк

The article provides the author’s analysis of the work of I. Bentham. The influence of his ideas on the implementation of reforms in Russia at the beginning of the 19th century, including the judicial reform of 1864, is shown. It is noted that from the ideological heritage of I. Bentham, such provisions as the independence of the judiciary, the need to codify the main branches of law, the priority of written law and the diminution of the role of legal custom, the equality of all before the law and the court regardless of class, the humanization of legal (primarily criminal) responsibility, the expansion of freedom of entrepreneurial activity in, etc. found a lively response in the Russian political elite and public consciousness.

The right of emphyteusis in the history of the Russian state (the late 15th – early 20th century)

The subject. The law of emphyteusis was studied in the Russian Empire in the middle of 19th – beginning of 20th century due to practical significance. The interest in this subject began to revive at the beginning of the 21st century, the first few publications appeared, but they were mostly replicas of Imperial period studies. The law of emphyteusis in Russia before the middle of the 19th century is not researched sufficiently. The purpose of the study is to confirm or disprove hypothesis that the law of emphyteusis was initially implemented in the system of Russian law as a legislative institution, but since the middle of the 19th century it has acquired the status of a local legal custom. The Russian state, having preserved the former system of civil law (the Lithuanian Statute) in the Western lands annexed from Lithuania and Poland, created the basis for the formation of a different system of legal awareness among a part of the population, thereby consolidating the dichotomy of the Empire and the Western provinces. Since the issue of land ownership is a key issue for feudal society, the law of emphyteusis is the most striking example of the split in the unity of the legal system of the Russian state. The methodology. The study is based on a combination of formal-legal and historical-legal methods: the methods of historicism, synchronous and diachronic comparison allow us to get an idea of the socio-political conditions in which the law of emphyteusis was formed and functioned. The main results, scope of application. The institute of emphyteusis (Latin – сensus, German – zins, Polish – czynsz) was formed on the basis of the reception of Roman and Byzantine law in the feudal law of a number of European States. Emphyteusis comes to the PolishLithuanian lands as an element of German law. The article describes the socio-political processes in the territories annexed by Russia from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, where the right of emphyteusis was preserved in the middle of 17th - first half of the 19th century as a local civil law under the Lithuanian Statute system. After the abolition of the Statute of Lithuania (1840) an emphyteusis preserved as a regional legal custom. The analysis of legislation and law enforcement practice on the issue of emphyteusis on the borderlands of the Russian state is carried out. The ineffectiveness of the state policy on the elimination of emphyteusis is noted. Conclusions. The revealed specifics of the development of emphyteusis in the Russian Empire are extremely poorly studied, although they indicate far-reaching consequences in the system of forming the legal consciousness of Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Jewish (Ashkenazi) and other peoples.

Implementarea instituţiei non-discriminării în legislaţia Republicii Moldova The implementation of the principle of non-discrimination in legislation of the Republic of Moldova Имплементация принципа недискриминации в законодательство Республики Молдова

Romanian Abstract: Проблема дискриминации явилась следствием реальных общественных процессов, объективно затрагивающих широкие слои населения и связанные с отрицанием свобод личности, и не в последнюю очередь её унижением. Несмотря на длительную историю существования дискриминации, она остается одной из сложнейших проблем международного права. Одна из сложностей связана с правовой природой принципа дискриминации. Так будучи нормой международного права, данный принцип права связан с процессом согласования воль государств относительно его признания в качестве обязательного правила поведения, выраженного в форме международного договора. Естественно, что для ряда государств это выражение обретает форму международно-правового обычая. Такая сложность указывает на смешанный договорно-обычный характер данного принципа права. Последовательные демократические преобразования, через которые прошла Республика Молдова, способствовали созданию собственной законодательной базы для проведения полной гармонизации национального законодательства с международными стандартами. Все эти критерии заложили фундамент правовых механизмов, необходимых для защиты прав и основных свобод человека. В условиях демократизации всех сфер общественной жизни, особое значение уделяется консолидации правового порядка, прагматического применения действующих нормативных и законодательных актов государственными органами, предназначенными для защиты не только интересов государства, но и каждого гражданина в отдельности, а также, непрерывного движения к сближению правовых систем путем заимствования институтов и практик, предоставляющих реальные гарантии. Процесс сближения и реформа законодательства Республики Молдова, неизбежно включает в себя изучение правовой базы, существующей в других странах, по эффективному управлению заимствованными институтами. Это привело к принятию институтов и инструментов, известных в международной практике и законодательстве, таких как институт «недискриминации», но реализация, которого только сейчас начата в законодательстве Республики Молдова. English Abstract: The problem of discrimination is the consequence of real social processes that objectively affect the biggest strata of population and is associated with the denial of the individual liberties, and not in the last instance their humiliation. Despite a long history of existence of discrimination problem, it remains one of the most difficult problems of international law. One of the difficulties is associated with the legal nature of the principle of discrimination. So being a norm of international law, this principle of law is connected with the harmonization of the wills of states regarding its recognition as a binding rule of conduct expressed in the form of international treaty. It is natural that for a number of the states this expression finds the form of international legal custom. This complexity points to a mixed, contractual and customary nature of this principle of law. The consecutive democratic transformations experienced by the Republic of Moldova favoured the creation of legislative basis to conduct its own full process of harmonizing national legislation with international standards. All these transformations have determined the creation of necessary legal mechanisms to protect human rights and fundamental freedoms. In the process of democratization of all spheres of social life is given particular importance to reinforce the rule of law and to pragmatic application of normative and legislative acts by state bodies, designed not only to protect state interests but also that of each citizen in particular. Also, a special role in this process belongs to the continuous movement toward a convergence of legal systems by borrowing those institutions and practices that provide actual guarantees in this respect. The convergence process and reform of legislation in the Republic of Moldova, inevitably, involves studying the regulatory framework that exists in other countries, in terms of efficient management of institutions which were taken over. This process led to the regulation of institutions and instruments well-known in the international law practice as, for example, the institution of “non-discrimination”, but has only now begun to be implemented in the legislation of the Republic of Moldova.

Legal custom and universal practice in the Russian criminal proceedings

The object of this research is the assemblage of social relations arising in the sphere of criminal justice in the course of eliminating legal gaps and contradictions. The subject of this research is the legal custom as one nontraditional sources of law for the Russian criminal proceeding, which is applied in the absence of norms consolidated in the normative legal acts, which are aimed at regulating the corresponding legal relations. Analysis is conducted on the essence of the concept of legal custom, means of formation, classification, and methods of application in criminal proceedings. Special attention is given to the methods of authorization of legal custom by the state, which may entail the recognition of this source of law as independent or transformation into another source of law. The main conclusions that also determine the scientific novelty of this research are as follows. 1. The system of Russia criminal procedure law is characterized by the development processes, which imply the formation and application of such an nontraditional source of law as legal custom. 2. Legal custom represents the rules not prohibited by law for performing procedural actions and making procedural decisions, which are translated into practice through repetition by the of the proceedings in the absence of the enforceable rule of law. 3. According to the method of formation, legal customs in criminal proceedings can be classified into dispositive (based on the voluntary will of the participants) and imperative (formed through tacit administrative influence). 4. Imperative legal customs are the negative phenomena of legal reality and cannot be attributed to the sources of law. 5. Authorization of legal custom as an independent source of law consists in its “tacit” approval by the government authorities. Textual consolidation of legal custom entails its transformation into a new form of law. 6. Universal practice is one of the characteristics of legal custom and a possible means for its legalization.

LA PERSPECTIVA DE GENERO EN LAS COSTUMBRES JURIDICAS DE LA POBLACION ORIGINARIA DE LA REGION PUNO

La perspectiva de género, en la construcción de una sociedad más igualitaria, no sólo es preocupación de la teoría y del debate político, ha sido incorporada en nuestra legislación y en las políticas públicas. La identificación de diversas brechas de género que se visibilizan como situaciones de desigualdad entre hombres y mujeres, en diversos espacios de desarrollo de las personas, constituye una realidad que se ha cuestionado. Es por ello que, al respecto, se ha generado preocupación del Estado y como resultado es la existencia de una inequívoca política de Estado sobre la igualdad de género. Así, se ha promulgado un marco normativo para la plasmación gradual de la igualdad entre hombres y mujeres. En diversos sectores del estado la aplicación de la perspectiva de género resulta un imperativo. Si bien esto resulta plausible, es también cierto que existe otro marco normativo que no es el oficial, y que regula con mucha eficacia la vida de las personas. Nos referimos al Derecho consuetudinario que se gesta sobre todo en las poblaciones originarias. Las costumbres constituyen un medio como se van construyendo de manera dinámica y sostenida las realidades sociales, las realidades jurídicas. Ante la dualidad de normas que regula las interrelaciones en el mundo andino, esto es, las normas legales oficiales y aquellas que provienen del Derecho Consuetudinario, es importante abordar esta temática en el derecho consuetudinario para verificar si esa dinámica normativa asume en su construcción y aplicación a la perspectiva de género. En la presente investigación, que en realidad es un fragmento de una de mayor dimensión, se busca determinar si en las costumbres jurídicas que moldean el derecho consuetudinario en las poblaciones originarias de la Región Puno se aplica la perspectiva de género, en la búsqueda de la igualdad entre hombres y mujeres.
 Respecto a la metodología, se trata de una investigación de tipo descriptivo, pues es un trabajo de campo de carácter interpretativo. Para el proceso interpretativo-analítico se utilizó el método fenomenológico-hermenéutico, pues el propósito es comprender, interpretar, profundizar en los significados desde el punto de vista del actor y establecer relaciones entre los significados y el contexto. La técnica de análisis será el Análisis Cualitativo, para recabar información que se focaliza en la entrevista. Para la selección de la muestra se consideró a informantes claves representativos de las poblaciones originarias de nuestra región, jueces de paz no letrados, autoridades comunales, ronderos y ronderas, tanto de la zona quechua como aymara de la Región Puno.
 
 Las conclusiones arribadas demuestran que en la Región de Puno, se manifiesta rezagos de una cultura de tipo patriarcal con predominio de los hombres sobre las mujeres determinando a partir de ello relaciones de desigualdad que no permiten el desarrollo de las mujeres y que estas asuman responsabilidades para las cuales cuentan con capacidades suficientes; sin embargo, en los últimos tiempos se ha venido gestando un cambio en la forma de entender la relación entre hombres y mujeres, y se está propiciando una mayor participación de las mujeres en el desarrollo familiar y social, lo que importa la aplicación paulatina de la perspectiva de género en la construcción de las realidades sociales y jurídicas. Los resultados obtenidos en la investigación podrían contribuir a generar nuevos estudios referidos al género y derecho consuetudinario, a la interculturalidad.

LEGAL INHERITANCE IN UKRAINIAN SOCIETY IN X–XVII CENTURY

In this article the essence of the institution of legal inheritance in the Ukrainian society of the X–XVII centuries is established. It is proposed to distinguish three stages of the development of this institution. In the X–XII centuries legal inheritance was regulated by barbaric consuetudinary law, since the XI century it was fixed in Russka Pravda. The heirs were the sons of the deceased; daughters got a share of parental property in the form of a dowry. The widow had the right to dispose of the property, but until she remarried. The property of persons who did not have sons was considered to be extortionate and was passed to the prince. Inheritance by will actually coincided with legal inheritance in terms of the circle of heirs. In the XIII – early XVI century hereditary relations were regulated by the rules of feudal law, fixed both in written law and in legal customs. The circle of legal heirs was expanded, daughters were allowed to inherit as well as sons, but all landowners were obliged to ensure military service from the estates. If there were no children, other relatives and a widow could inherit. The property of persons who had no relatives was considered extortionate and was passed to the prince. In the late XVI and XVII century the feudal law, including hereditary, was transformed into early modern. The institution of legal inheritance became more complicated and consisted of the rules of written and consuetudinary law, its formation was also influenced by legal practice. As a result, there was a certain dualism of inheritance by law: the practice was not the same for the privileged classes and the common population. Among the social elite, along with the recognition of women's inheritance rights, the restrictions on the inheritance of parental property by married women were deleted, and the inheritance rights of other relatives were expanded. The unprivileged urban and rural population in the practice of legal inheritance used archaic norms of consuetudinary law, which were formed in previous periods.

International Legal Custom аs an Object of Interpretation: Modern Approaches and Discussions

The article determines that the transition from a liberal state system to a welfare state system has adapted the concept of international legal custom and the correlation between its two elements. With the emergence of new members of the international system, a new environment has emerged where there is no clear common understanding of the definition and content of international law rules. The lack of an effective, consistent method of identifying international custom dictates the requirement to seek an effective methodology for interpreting international legal customs actively. The article finds out that often competing interpretations arise about the same practice. Therefore, it is necessary to find the interpretation offering more tools for practice, with other things being equal. If a deductive methodology seeks a connection between principle and law, an inductive one looks for social facts that support common practice. It is proved that a qualitatively new constructive interpretation has the potential to provide a better interpretation of international community practice. In conclusion, it is stated that the result of constructive interpretation should be the orientation of the goal into practice.

Понятие правового обычая в философии, культурологии и юридической антропологии

Despite the ambiguous attitude of legal researchers to the place and role of legal customs in modern legal systems, this topic is of great interest in domestic science. The transitive nature of Russian society is a recognized reason. The goal was set — to conduct a comparative analysis of approaches to this phenomenon in three social sciences and humanities — philosophy, cultural studies and legal anthropology. Based on the analysis of a number of works of the last 5 years, it was concluded that the greatest cognitive potential is contained in legal anthropology — a relatively young science that studies the legal existence of mankind (and its constituent ethnic groups, peoples, nations) at all stages of the development of this existence, from archaic to modern. English version of the article on pp. 184-193 at URL: https://panor.ru/articles/the-concept-of-legal-custom-in-philosophy-cultural-studies-and-legal-anthropology/65909.html

Legal Convention as a Source of Law: Historical and Theoretical Aspects

The article examines legal custom as the first source of law. For a long time legal custom has occupied a fundamental place in the formation of the entire system of law. At present, in most modern and developed countries, the supremacy of written sources of law (regulatory legal acts) dominates, and the importance of custom has begun to decline sharply. In this regard, casuistic situations arise in the practical application of normative legal acts and established legal customs legalized by the state. On the basis of this, the study of the current position of legal custom in the system of Russian law is recognized as an urgent need for a uniform conduct of business and compliance with the principles of equality and justice. An important point is that the legal custom remains an integral part of the life of society and cannot be ignored by the legal system, since it was he who initially determined the boundaries of permissibility and morality, and therefore it is necessary to base legislative activity in accordance with existing legal customs, eradicating those that contradict the basic constitutional principles or the needs of modern society.

ВЕДИЧНА КУЛЬТУРА ЯК СКЛАДОВА ФОРМУВАННЯ ПРАВА УКРАЇНИ

The aim of this article is to determine the influence of vedic culture on the development of Ukrainian law. The paper utilises the elements comparative study of law, linguistics, and deductive methods. The vedic culture was rediscovered by Englishmen, when they conquered India. The colonialists discovered, that in this remote Asian country vedic culture was preserved and dominated local people. On the basis of sacred books – Vedas – the complicated system of law was developed. It was fixed in written form in so called Dharma-shastras or Dharma-shustras. The colonial administration had to study Indian law to fulfill its duties. But for European people it was hard to understand its key concept – dharma. Dharma is a very complicated concept, that demonstrates high level of philosophic and legal thought. The indian vedic priests affirmed, that Vedas contain the whole vedic law and can not be changed. That is why the legal custom and law doctrine developed in India. This peculiarity is common for Vedic law and Islamic law. Islam appeared thousands years after Vedas were written. One of the founders of Islamic Law descended from vedic culture. So the author makes the conclusion, that Islamic Law borrowed its concept of interpretation of sacred texts from vedic culture. In XIX century linguistical studies of European scientists revealed the unexpected proximity of Indian and European languages and cultures. So scientists invented the term "indo-european". But historical science ignored the results of linguistical studies and localized vedical culture only in India. Linguistical, archeological and written data show, that vedic culture, believes and law dominated on the territory of Ukraine for many thousands of years. Rus people (now called the Ukrainians) worshiped vedic gods and had their own Vedas. But Vedas were stolen by Ortodox Christian Church. This history is known thanks to "The Book of Veles", written by Rus (Ukrainian) vedic priests in IX century. Modern Ukrainian linguists show the parallels between sanscrit, hindi and Ukrainian words about state and law. In XIX century many monuments with inscriptions were found in Crimea, that revealed the vedic origins of Europe. Most of them were taken by Russians and Englishmen and now are kept in Russian and British museums. One of them directly indicates on usage of Dharma-shastras in Crimea in III century A.D. The Vedas is the most ancient source of Ukrainian law. It is the basis of its development.

Evolution of regulatory act in the system of sources of law of Ukraine of the IX - XIX centuries

Taking into account the achievements of modern domestic historiography, the evolution of the normative legal act in the system of sources of law of Ukraine from the appearance to the approval as the main source is covered. The historical and legal analysis of sources of law and their ratio at different stages of development is carried out. Particular attention is paid to the materials of codifications and compliance of historical analogues with the modern classification of sources of law. The purpose of the study was to identify the general patterns of its development and features that have been formed historically and have influenced the further development of the legal act in Ukraine. I t is concluded that the legal act is gradually becoming the main source of law in Ukraine since the XVI century. For a long time, the normative legal act developed in close connection with legal custom. Certain aspects of civil law remained unresolved, leading to the formal recognition of customary law in rural areas throughout the period. At an early stage, the normative legal act was formed under the influence of the Byzantine legal tradition, from the XVI century was influenced by the Roman legal tradition in its Western European version and from the XVIII century was in the sphere of influence of the Russian legal tradition. Its main features were: the influence of customary law, the influence of different legal traditions and legal systems of state entities, which included the Ukrainian lands in certain periods, confusion, cumbersomeness and sometimes divergence from practice.

Muslim Immigration to France in the 20th Century: Causes, Cycles, Problems

The article devoted to the problem of Muslim immigration in France in the 20th century. The focus is on the causes of Muslim immigration, its cycles, specificity and consequences for modern French society. Based on a comparison of various statistical data, it stated that Muslim immigration is an integral part of three large waves of immigration flows that took place from the end of the 19th to the end of the 20th centuries. The article notes the correlation of the number of Muslim immigrants in France with the global numbers of immigrant arrivals to the country. However, if in the first two waves their number depended on the economic needs of the French economy (Muslims came to earn money), then during the third wave other factors came into play — the creation of stable communities, family reunification, going on stage second and third generations of immigrants, social problems of their arrangement and adaptation to French legal norms and customs. The article notes the specificity of the geographical concentration of the Muslim population, which takes place either near large industrial centers and cities (which makes it easier to find work and social protection), or in places of proximity to their native countries (southern France). Special attention paid to the problem of the evolution of state policy in the admission and integration of immigrants, when various methods tired from assimilation, the adoption of quotas to the policy of flexible regulation of immigration and expulsion of illegal immigrants from the country. The article analyzes the position of the Muslim community in France, the role of Muslim associations in its life, the impact on the socio-cultural life of the French. It can stated that Islam has become the second religion in France, which determines its position — a stable presence in socio-economic life (employment, the spread of the social protection system to immigrants), political (the right to vote, the possibility of creating associations, manifestations), religious (the possibility of worship), cultural (the formation of a specific immigrant subculture).

Types of Legal Customs

Types of Legal Customs

Требование законности решений уголовного суда: правовые основания и содержательные компоненты

Legality as a complex legal requirement to judicial decisions, developed for a long time by Russian science and legal practice, was formally consolidated in the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation in 2001 and extended to all decisions of the criminal court. However, the wording of the law does not fully and adequately reflect the content of this requirement, and to some extent it contradicts the established scientific ideas and needs of judicial practice. In this regard, the author aims to reveal the content side of the concept of legality of judicial decisions in criminal proceedings, both from a historical perspective and from the perspective of modern legal understanding, and to justify the need to adjust the legislative expression of this requirement. The research problems are solved using historical, dialectical and comparative legal methods of cognition based on the analysis of relevant theoretical concepts developed by the Russian science of criminal procedure law, the provisions of criminal procedure legislation and the legal positions of the judicial authorities: the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, federal courts of general jurisdiction. The legal sources of regulatory requirements that the criminal court should follow when making procedural decisions have been identified. The author substantiates the need for an expanded understanding of the legality of judicial decisions as their compliance not only with direct instructions of the law, but also with legal provisions contained in other forms of law: constitutional norms, generally recognized principles and norms of international law, established legal customs, as well as standards of justice developed by judicial practice and legal positions on specific issues of law enforcement. In the context of historical development, the material and procedural aspects of the requirement of legality of judicial decisions in criminal proceedings are analyzed and its content components are formulated. Continuity and at the same time dynamism of doctrinal and legislative approaches to determining the legality of court decisions supported by judicial practice are noted. Certain shortcomings of the normative consolidation of the requirement of legality of court decisions in the current Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation are revealed, in connection with which specific proposals are made to change and optimize certain formulations of the procedural law that determine the content of the requirement of legality of a sentence and other court decisions in criminal proceedings.

Щодо особливостей формування міжнародно-правових звичаїв

The article is devoted to the peculiarities of the formation of international legal customs in modern international law. The growing role of contractual relations has not been able to transform customary law into exclusively contractual law. The existing system of international law could not be imagined without international custom for several reasons: first, various branches and institutions in modern international law partially or even completely consist of customary norms, and secondly, in those areas where treaty regulation is impossible for various reasons, more and more new norms of customary law continue to arise. There are many opinions on the issue of creating customary norms of international law in international legal Science. The main question is whether these norms are formed through the interaction of the will of states or whether their appearance is not due to the participation of the will. In its historical development, custom as a source of international law has long been the most important procedure for forming international legal norms. This was due to the fact that the interstate system has never had a legislative body that would adopt such legal norms. For this reason, many international legal norms were created on the basis of the Customs and practices of states, which is why they had the character of customary legal norms. The main approach to the formation of an international legal custom is studied. The main components of international custom are considered and their exhaustive characteristics are given. The role of international custom for modern international law is clarified, as well as the indication of the need for further development of this issue in the domestic legal field for its effective use in international relations. Theoretical foundations of substantiation of nature of international custom are determined.

The Norms of Roman Law and the Concept of Jurisdiction in the French Coutumiers of the 13th Century

The article is devoted to the analysis of the earliest North French collections of customary law of the 13th century: the “Coutume de Touraine-Anjou”, the “Usage d’Orlenois”, the “Conseil à un ami” of Pierre de Fontaines and the “Livre de jostice et de plet”. These codes practically did not attract the attention of modern researchers, but they differ in one curious feature: they have an impressive number of borrowings from the Roman law, or rather from the legislation of Justinian (483—565). The main task of the article was an attempt to understand what purpose these inserts served, how the authors and the compilers of the coutumiers worked with this material and, finally, what relation the Roman legal norms had to the territory to which the customary law of a particular area of the French Kingdom applied. According to the author of the article, the references to Roman law appeared in the texts of the Northern French coutumiers precisely because these latter were compiled during the grandiose judicial transformations of Louis IX the Saint and served primarily to settle the relations of the crown with local lords in the sphere of jurisdiction. The norms of the Roman law not only filled in the gaps in the knowledge of the lawyers of the 13th century regarding local legal customs, they also turned out to be extremely useful in order to build a clear “vertical of power” in the French Kingdom, which was entering the era of genuine centralization.

On the question of the functions and tasks of legal custom

The article researches the functions and tasks of legal custom based on historical experience and the current state of legal life.The view represents that law and culture functions are realized through legal custom, as it is an important element of these phenomena.At the same time, it is noted that legal custom is characterized by a separate catalog of functions and tasks that need to be studied. Theregulatory, explanatory, protective, defensive, inflectional, reconstitutive, ideological-educative, identification-communicative, antimonopoly,and legal-resource functions of legal custom are analyzed. The administrative and organizational components of the regulatoryfunction of legal custom are highlighted. The preventive and restrictive components of the protective function of legal custom are cha -racterized. It is substantiated that these functions are inextricably linked with the tasks of legal custom.Based on the analyzed functions, the following tasks of a legal custom are allocated: the legal regulation of social relations; cla -rification of provisions of the legislation, acts of law enforcement, texts of agreements, terms and symbolic actions; legal protection ofpublic goods and values; providing opportunities to protect rights and freedoms; stabilization of the legal system, its protection fromill-considered and risky transformations; reproduction of the acquired legal experience in new conditions; ensuring the flexibility of thelegal system; influence on the worldview of the individual and society in general; determining the affiliation of the subject to a parti -cular community and maintaining communication between its members; prevention of monopoly in the legal system of a normativelegal act or other sources of law; formation of material for the systematization of law.It is argued that legal custom, as a social phenomenon, evolving in the process of history, performed a wide range of functionsthat correlated with its tasks. Not every period, people, or locality is characterized by a full set of analyzed functions and tasks, but itis worth noting the possibility of their implementation by the legal custom in general, as evidenced by past experience and the currentstate of legal relations. The results of the research, on the one hand, complement the understanding of the nature of legal custom, andon the other – prove the feasibility of further use of this source of law in modern legal systems.

SOURCES OF SCIENTIFIC LAW ANNOTATION

The article discusses the sources of scientific law that regulate relations in the field of organization,funding and research. The author classified normative legal acts, judicial practice, international legal acts,legal customs and local normative acts of scientific and educational organizations as sources of scientificlaw. At the same time, the doctrine of scientific law has yet to be worked out, which in the future may takethe place of the source of the “law of science”.

Shells and Order: Questionnaires on Indigenous Law in German New Guinea

This article examines the short-lived colony of German New Guinea (1884–1914) to reflect on divergent frames of bureaucratic and academic knowledge production. Scholars of law at German universities from this period showed an avid interest in the legal customs of people presumed to be colonized, while readily admitting that bureaucrats knew more about this important emerging field and knew it first. In order to understand the unfolding dynamic of a crucial component of colonial rule, this article examines indigenous law as an entangled epistemic object. It traces specific formats of Western writing about indigenous law through different settings, ranging from questions asked in the field to debates in parliament. The argument is based on two main types of quantified, data-based, and standardized material: (1) a statistical survey on indigenous law, and (2) the shell money diwara, which was used to levy fines and punishments. The article shows how both the standardized rules and the medium of exchange were crucial to enforcing order. It demonstrates that liberal colonial politics from 1907 onwards had to be based on existing systems of license and valuation. Knowledge of local customs and institutions was indispensable to govern by means of forces already at play in German New Guinea. Slowly, the German bureaucracy translated these local customs into its own metrics. This article is a contribution to the history of bureaucratic knowledge, drawing on the history of law, colonial statistics, and the political epistemology of quantification. This article is part of a special issue entitled “Histories of Bureaucratic Knowledge,” edited by Sebastian Felten and Christine von Oertzen.