ACTA JURIDICA - A MTA Jogtudományi Közleményei Tom. 21 (1979)
1979 / 1-2. sz. - SAJÓ A.: The observance of Socialist law
Acta Juridica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, Tomus 21 (1 — 2), pp. 1 — 25 (1979) The Observance of Socialist Law by A. SAJÓ research worker Institute for Legal and Administrative Sciences of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences The problem of law observance, i.e. the problem of why people obey the commands of the law, or why the conduct of society mostly coincides with the state of things the legal order demands, is in association with the ideological functions of law and jurisprudence, a problem which so far has scarcely been made subject to an analysis. If, however, we are intent to become acquainted with the mechanism of the establishment of the law in society we can hardly avoid the study of law observance. In its interpretation of law observance the point of departure of the present study is the social mechanism guaranteeing this observance, viz. obedience. In accordance with Marxist analysis obedience has its foundation in the process of production itself. On the other hand it is indispensable for this process of production that all essential fields of social life should be organized as relations of obedience. Owing to the specific requirements of production obedience is essential even in socialism. At the same time the various elements of the superstructure, and in this line the law, have a significant fimction in guaranteeing this socially unavoidable obedience. This social exigency primarily results from the class conditions is present also in societies building socialism. By forgetting the fundamental social relations of observance many scholars place the direct effect of the law on individual consciousness in the axis of the social mechanism of the law and setting out from this they expect miracles from legal propaganda. Given the role of the State in the building of socialism, the legal traditions and the true content of social consciousness, one has to admit that the law can be effective in a social sense by moulding the objective circumstances which are capable of defining the social relations. This results in law observance. It is only at a higher level of the social development that the law-abiding citizen, who follows his intrinsic conviction to behave according to the provisions of law, becomes a social standard. (Law observance and obedience.) The analysis of the problem of law observance may not from the point of view of legal practicism appear of particular importance. If people obey the law, i.e. the law prevails, all is in order, there is nothing left to examine ; if not, there is the court of law to enforce the law, and at the worst, in the last resort, at most the regulation wdl have to be modified. This argumentation is, however, practically untenable. If, namely, we ignore the virtual interrelations in which regulation has an effect on society, the success of any regulation will have to be doubted from the very outset. It is this kind of a practical problem which seems to justify the analysis of law observance. That the analysis of law observance to follow subsequently does not after all set out from what is directly given, may be explained by experience matured amidst failures, that the one kind of wider 1 Acta Juridica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, Tomus 21, 1979