| Eugen Ehrlich is one of the main founders of legal sociology. Ehrlich’s"living law" theory that includes his main theories of legal sociology is the foundation of Ehrlich’s legal sociology thought.Lived in Bukovina province(European) in the early 19th century and 20th century, Ehrlich has experienced the process of European society moving from the stage of liberal capitalism to the stage of monopoly capitalism;and the characteristic of multi-ethnic residence provided him a good opportunity to observe various phenomena of the society. Being prompted by reasons both of the time and geography, Ehrlich’s "living law" theory was born.In the processes of formation and development of "living low", Ehrlich borrowed and absorbed a lot of research results of law schools, such as natural school of law, historical school of law and analytical school of law. Based on the animadversion and inheritance of these law schools,the theory and framework construction of his own law system were developed.With the joint efforts of jurists represented by Ehrlich at the time, legal sociology came into being.Based on "living law" theory,Ehrlich proposed many unique readings of legal sociology,which was characterized by legal nature, function and value.The "free discovery movement of law" put forward by the "living law" theory provided a new understanding point for the function operation of courts and judges.Ehrlich believed that the main function of a judge is to get legal propositions from legal facts.However, not any case of judgement could be corresponding to the available legal propositions because of the wide variety of social disputes.Ehrlich "living law" theory appeared to provide inspiration and ideas for a lot of later legal thoughts, such as Pound’s sociological jurisprudence and American legal realism theory, which had benefited a lot from it.This paper includes four parts of the text besides introduction and conclusion.The Introduction section mainly introduces the versions and text structure of Ehrlich’s book "Principles of Sociology of Law "and current research both at home and abroad.The first part mainly introduces the social background Ehrlich’s lived and his achievements through his lifetime.From the perspectives of historical background and geographical factors in the formation of the theory, it points out the root cause of Ehrlich’s legal sociological theory.What’s more, combined with the readings of other law schools at that time,it introduces generation process and the main theory of sociology of law.The second part introduces the main content of Ehrlich’s "living law" theory.Then this parts is divided into three aspects in details. First, we aim to know what is "living law" from the two aspects of order implied by "living law"and the context of knowledge acquitted, and introduce the basic meaning of Ehrlich’s "living law".Second, we explore the nature of Ehrlich’s "living law" theory,that is, the natures of "mirror", region and diversity.Finally, we discuss the manifestations of Ehrlich’s "living law" theory.The third part mainly focuses on the evaluation of Ehrlich’s "living law" theory, which describes its validity and shortages from various aspects of Ehrlich’s "living law" theory in details.The last part discusses the inspiration Ehrlich "living law" theory brings for our Chinese modernization of the legal system.The author points out that Ehrlich’s theory of "living law" not only changes our traditional legal consciousness but also constructs the combination of legislation and "living law". That helps our legal practitioners to enhance the in-depth study of things at social level during the legislative and judicial processes, pay more attention to the civil law and expect to develop the overall activity of our laws. |
PDF Full Text Request