Sociology of law and of legal policy 3401-1R3SOP32

Prerequisites: Basic knowledge on law and sociology.

The main task of this course is to present the fundamental cognitive, theoretical, methodological and practical problems of sociology of law and legal policy.
Sociology of law will be presented as an empirical discipline that provides information on forms and manifestations of presence of law in social life, culture, social attitudes and political practice. Legal policy, understood in the manner proposed by Adam Podgórecki, will be shown as an organized body of scientific recommendations, thus giving the opportunity to use knowledge of the law (especially - knowledge acquired by sociology of law) to the completion of planned social changes.
The primary cognitive task of conducted activities, is to present students information on the law as a social and cultural phenomenon (temporally and geographically specific), the possibilities of influencing the shape of official state law, moreover about using the law as the tool of the social change.
In addition to the cognitive objectives, courses have a practical purpose. Acquaint students with methods of recognize the real problems associated with lawmaking, application of law and law enforcement, is intended to build the critical attitudes towards the law.
During the course several issues related to the particular characteristics of law as a social phenomenon will be discussed: the controversy among sociologists and lawyers on the substance and definition of law, its origins, place in culture and social functions. Analysis of specific problems (illustrated with contemporary examples), will serve to show relationships between socio-legal knowledge and ability of actins in legal policy sphere. This will include such topics as: legal control, law in the processes of social change, disfunctionality of the law, destruction of social normativity, justice and injustice of the law, equality before the law, legal exclusion, etc..,

Classes will be held in the form of discussion, assuming the active participation of students. Although the first session, for obvious reasons, will be closer to the form of a lecture (because of the need to clarify basic concepts), the students' participation and the free exchange of views (supported by reading the recommended literature) will be crucial for the shape of the course.
This will adjust the content of lessons to the interests of the participating students.
During the course students will be required to prepare at least two written essays.
Evaluation of essays will determine the extent to which each of the students mastered the content in the recommended literature and his ability to use the acquired knowledge. Based on work submitted, students will receive evaluations. The student can accept this assessment, as a final mark. Student is always entitled to submit the exam.

A list of topics:1) Legal policy - theoretical idealization of social practice?
a) Social theoretical sciences and applied social sciences.
b) Leon Petrażycki and other forerunners of the legal policy thought.
c) Sociology of law as one of auxiliary sciences of the legal policy
2) What is the sociology of law for?
a) The place of sociology of law among the social sciences.
b) The place of sociology among the juridical disciplines.
c) Scientific status of sociology of law.
d) Functions of the sociology of law.
3) Origins and development of sociology of law
a) Western classics of sociology of law - legal positivism and reconstruction of legal science.
b) Russian disputes about law and Leon Petrażycki’s sociology of law.
c) Birth and development of the polish sociology of law.
d) Leon Petrażycki’s influence on polish sociology of law.
e)  Importance of Adam Podgórecki’s researches.
4) The law, among other normative systems
a) Social values and norms.
b) Normative pluralism.
c) Types of and classifications social norms
d) Special features of law as a normative order.
e) Social science and definition of law problem.
5) Law as a social and cultural phenomenon
a) Law as a normative order.
b) Law as a system of social communication.
c) Languages of law
d) Legal culture and legal tradition.
6) Pluralism of law
a) The multiplicity and variability of law.
b) Customary law and research on it.
c) The relationship between customary law and official law.
d) The pluralism of legal cultures.
e) Law in non-Western legal cultures.
7) Western legal tradition
a) Autonomy of law.
b) Order, liberty and justice.
c) Rule of law – basic axiology.
d) Evolution and “crisis” of Western legal tradition.
e) Polish legal culture on the background of Western legal tradition: aspirations and residues.
8) Specific socio-legal point of view
a) Research perspective (sociologists) versus utilitarian perspective (lawyers).
b) The hegemony of the state and politicizing of the law.
c) The political entanglements of modern lawmaking.
d) Law as real phenomenon and “positivisation” of law.
e) The consequences of official law domination.
9) Social functions of law
a) Functions of law as real social functions
b) Ontological and methodological problems in studies on functions of law.
c) Juridical myth of eufunctionality of law.
d) Resocialisation versus prisonization: the functions of criminal punishment from lawyer’s and sociologist’s points of view.
e) Eufunctions and disfunctions of law.
10) Law in system of social control
a) Law in processes of socialization.
b) The legal conformism and the legal deviation.
c) Structural and cultural origins of deviation.
d) Legal Control - the guardian of conformism.
e) The disturbances of control processes – “control of the third degree”.
11) Law and social changes
a) Law as social change braking factor.
b) Law as a product of social changes.
c) Social security and the increasing of etatization of law.
d) The depletion of social resources and law.
12) Law as an instrument of social change – legal policy and legal sociotechnics
a) Conditions and limits of the effective influence of legal instruments.
b) The boundaries of judicial intervention.
c) Directives of legal policy.
d) Sociotechnics function of sociology of law (Adam Podgórecki).
e) Legal sociotechnics – practical recommendation.
f) Political based instrumentalisation of law.
13) Law and justice
a) The demands addressed to the law in Poland.
b) The justice and the equality.
c) Is the principle of equal rights a social fact, a political demand or a lawyers lie?
d) Justice and „social justice”.
14) Legal exclusion
a) Social inclusion and social exclusion.
b) Legal exclusion as a form of social exclusion.
c) The forms of legal exclusion.
d) Law as source of social exclusion.
15) Law and social change in Poland
a) Weaknesses of Polish law - continuity and change
b) Sources of the dysfunctions of the Polish law
c) Internal or external nature of Polish problems with the law?
d) Destruction of normativity: signum temporis or outlook error?