Articles – Page 17

Recognizing, Overlooking, Ignoring: On the Legislator’s Attitudes Towards Actual Closeness

Mgr Marlena Drapalska-Grochowicz

University of Silesia in Katowice

English abstract: The text considers why certain types of close relationships are “invisible” in the legal system. Visibility can mean public recognition, status recognition, social acceptance. What is “visible to the law” is the closeness that the law recognizes, accepts, supports, and with which it links certain obligations and rights, e.g. marriage. However, the main subject of this study will be those close relationships that are invisible in the legal system (obscurus). Two people, remaining in an actually close relationship, may not be recognized as such in the legal system. The purpose of this paper is to understand why these kinds of differences arise between law and life, and, more specifically, what the “invisibility” of individual close relationships in the legal system results from. In my reflection, I will use references to the film Call Me by Your Name.

Keywords: close relationships, law and emotions, the attitudes of the legislator

Language: Polish

Published: Number 1(26)/2021, pp. 112-127.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2021.1.112

Download: Download
Number of downloads: 482

Pasikowski’s ‘Pigs’ as an Illustration of Vetting in a Transitional Society

Mgr Mateusz Grabarczyk

Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań

English abstract: Pigs, a 1992 movie directed by Władysław Pasikowski, has become an iconic picture over the years, growing into a source of quotes and becoming a cult classic. The film, while remaining commercially attractive, outlines many problems within transitional justice and opens a discussion regarding the vetting of the SB officers carried out at that time, including the selected model.

The plot of the film takes place in 1990, the period of political transformation in Poland after the fall of communism. Before the purely sensational action comes to the fore, the movie is largely about a reform of the MSW and the SB, about vetting of its officers and their fate while trying to find themselves in the new reality. It also shows that it is remarkably difficult to carry out reforms simultaneously in many fields: political, economic and social, and that it may be the source of a crisis.

The aim of this article is to present Pasikowski’s Pigs as a film that demonstrates the practical issues related to one of the mechanisms used in the framework of transitional justice, namely the vetting process. The movie as an artistic representation of individuals subjected to vetting opens discourse on transitional justice and the problem of dealing with undemocratic system. The paper concentrates on a general outline of the movie, paying attention to the vetting committees and their function within the framework of transitional justice. While presenting the normative model of officers’ vetting and juxtaposing it with the image shown in the film, the author displays basic moral and social problems related to the vetting.

Keywords: Pasikowski’s Pigs, security service, vetting, dealing with the past, transitional justice, decommunization

Language: English

Published: Number 1(26)/2021, pp. 100-111.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2021.1.100

Download: Download
Number of downloads: 562

Fairytale (R)Evolution? Women’s Rights and Disney Movies

Mgr Karolina Kocemba

University of Wrocław

English abstract: In the article, the author raises the issue of socialization of children through popular culture. She assumes that popular culture can be treated as a carrier of values and patterns of conduct, and also as a key factor of socialization. The codes, contexts or values that are conveyed through animated movies, are what a child can later refer to the surrounding reality. In this way, it is possible to learn family, professional or gender roles, which are then perpetuated in play. The author explores primarily the impact of popular culture through an analysis of animated films produced by Walt Disney Pictures, in which the main characters are princesses and in which gender roles get considerable exposure. Assuming that gender is socially constructed, we learn about gender norms through interactions with people and popular culture, which convey to us the norms and values of the society we live in. The author points out how the patterns conveyed by Disney movies have changed and what their relationship with women’s rights was. Simultaneously, the author analyses the impact of these films on legal culture, trying to see how animated movies affect legal awareness and attitudes towards the law, and what patterns are passed on to the youngest citizens.

Keywords: women’s rights, socialization, popular culture, legal culture, sociology of film

Language: Polish

Published: Number 1(26)/2021, pp. 86-99.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2021.1.86

Download: Download
Number of downloads: 747

They Live… and They Make Consumer Law a Poor Instrument of Distributive Justice

Mgr Szymon Osmola

European University Institute, Florence

English abstract: Even though consumer contract law concerns voluntary agreements between private parties, it is often considered to be an instrument of the principle of distributive justice, according to which the design of social institutions should benefit the worse-off members of society. The article claims that such a view is mistaken. It appeals to the so-called status quo argument, according to which interpreting consumer law as an instrument of distributive justice may entrench the current, unjust state of affairs, and therefore compound, rather than eradicate, distributive injustice. Within that framework, consumer law is treated as the legal instantiation of consumer culture, which, even if not inherently unjust, poses several risks for individuals and their overall wellbeing. Apart from presenting the abstract argument, the article illustrates it with a vivid example from popular culture – John Carpenter’s iconic film They Live.

Keywords: consumer law, contract law, distributive justice, They Live

Language: English

Published: Number 1(26)/2021, pp. 76-85.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2021.1.76

Download: Download
Number of downloads: 574

Andrey Zvyagintsev’s ‘Leviathan’: The Unbearable State of Nature

Mgr Katarzyna Krzyżanowska

European University Institute, Florence

Abstract: Leviathan by Andrey Zvyagintsev is a movie that depicts the world in a state of nature, with no prospects for creating a Hobbesian social contract. Set in the Russian peripheries, the film depicts a respected and caring family man who is gradually deprived of everything because of lack of political order with enforceable law and justice. The movie is a depiction of a contemporary “failed state”, equalized with the state of nature, where there is no legitimate power and violence remains the only tool to achieve goals both in private and public spheres. Religion consists of empty rituals that serve corrupt officials to maintain power. This world cannot last without innocent victims, scapegoats of the society, one of whom is the protagonist of the movie. This paper offers a legal and philosophical inquiry into the film, as it draws especially on the theory of the social contract proposed by Hobbes. It depicts a Russian town as a symbol of the state of nature as envisioned by Hobbes and describes the reasons why the social contract has not been made. According to Hobbes’s theory, in the state of nature concepts like justice and injustice do not convey any meaning; therefore, this paper investigates other: theological and anthropological concepts, to explore the meaning of Zvyagintsev’s Leviathan.

Keywords: Leviathan, Hobbes, Legendre, Agamben, crisis, ritual, religion, law

Language: English

Published: Number 1(26)/2021, s. 62-75.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2021.1.62

Ściągnij plik: Download
Liczba ściągnięć: 597

Between Justice and Mercy: Comparison of American and Russian Versions of 12 Angry Men

Dr Paweł Jabłoński

University of Wrocław

Abstract: The aim of the article is to thematize two different types of attitudes to the law – which, referring to works by Marek Jan Siemek and Lon Luvois Fuller, I call the “Eastern attitude” and the “Western attitude”. This task is realized by a comparative interpretation of two famous films: 12 Angry Men, directed by Sidney Lumet, and Nikita Mikhalkov’s Russian-language remake of Lumet’s movie, titled 12. I try to show that although these two films tell similar stories, there are significant differences between them in regard to the perception of the law. In the American version, the law is a system of mechanisms that really work and are taken seriously. In the Russian version, the law is, to a large extent, only an appearance, which in reality must be replaced by ethics.

Keywords: law, respect for law, ethics, “West”, “East”, justice, mercy

Language: Polish

Published: Number 1(26)/2021, s. 45-61.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2021.1.45

Download: Download
Number of downloads: 629

Lawyers’ Role Models on the Example of ‘Monkey Trial’ in Stanley Kramer’s Film ‘Inherit the Wind’

Prof. UG dr hab. Tomasz Widłak

University of Gdańsk

Abstract: The article analyses the film Inherit the Wind, directed by Stanley Kramer in 1960, according to a screenplay inspired by events of the so-called Scopes monkey trial, which took place in 1925 in Dayton, Tennessee (US). The filmmakers recreated fairly freely the motive of the controversial ‘trial of the century’, offering the viewers an allegory of political events of the 1950s instead of historical accuracy. At the same time, it was a universal essay on the consequences of institutionalization of ideological and religious fundamentalism. The timeless appeal of Kramer’s motion picture can also be seen in the context of his positive commitment to legal ethics. The plot of the film is a clash of legal professionals, whose personalities are similar to two outstanding lawyers who actually participated in the monkey trial: William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow. Kramer’s film presents a positive role model of a lawyer, that is, defence counsel Drummond, contrasting him with the antihero: a lawyer and politician supporting the prosecution, called Brady. The film personalities of Drummond and Brady are reconstructed from the point of view of virtue ethics, using exemplarist moral theory by Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski, which enables giving a fuller picture of the created personages than in case of a deontic assessment of the moral validity of their individual acts.

Keywords: exemplarism, virtue ethics, legal ethics, virtue jurisprudence, monkey trial

Language: Polish

Published: Number 1(26)/2021, s. 33-44.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2021.1.33

Download: Download
Number of downloads: 544

Jurisprudence Popularized: Between Law, Literature, and Film

Mgr Marta Dubowska

Jagiellonian University in Kraków

Abstract: In this paper I discuss the apparent similarities between the “literate approach” and the aspiring “visual media approach”. Then, I scrutinize arguments for utility of the second approach. It seems that even though both approaches are founded on similar humanistic considerations, they are nonetheless separate positions; thus the need to justify the application of the second approach independently of the first. As an important task in due course I consider debunking the arguments in support of accusations of the “law and film” movement of being a threat to law and its legitimacy (as related to the “law going pop” argument by Richard K. Sherwin).

Keywords: law and literature, law and film, law and popular culture, narrative, jurisprudence

Language: English

Published: Number 1(26)/2021, s. 21-32.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2021.1.21

Download: Download
Number of downloads: 611

Law in Film as a Manifestation of Aesthetics of Law and a Special Case of Law and Literature Movement

Prof. dr hab. Kamil Zeidler

University of Gdańsk

English abstract: If we put together and systematize research streams: law in film, law and literature, and aesthetics of law, it is easy to reach the conclusion that we are dealing with related subjects, with a certain overlap in research areas. The broadest term is aesthetics of law, whose scope covers the entire law and literature movement, meanwhile law in film is a more detailed aspect of the latter.

Systematizing the aesthetics of law, we can close it in three aspects: the external one, the internal one, and the one called ‘law as a device for aesthetization’. The aesthetics of law in the external aspect deals with manifestations of law, legal inspirations, legal themes, symbols, signs, which were represented through centuries in fine arts. The subject of the aesthetics of law in the internal aspect is the law itself. The third aspect of the aesthetics of law focuses on law as a device for aesthetization of daily life.

In the law and literature movement, the reflections concern either the inclusion of legislative and legal content in literary works (law in literature), or the literary, including aesthetic, value, of normative instruments, and more broadly, also other acts of applying the law (law as literature). A special case of this research stream is legal cinematography, where a film prepared on the basis of a screenplay is treated as a kind of narrative, justifying the statement that law in film further develops the law and literature movement.

The practical aspect of such research – of legal aesthetics, law and literature, and law in film – concerns mainly the significance and influence on legal awareness, and on shaping the attitudes towards law. The key thing here is approaching the problem of influencing legal awareness through other means than the text of a normative instrument alone.

Keywords: aesthetics of law, law and literature, law in film, legal cinematography, legal awareness

Language: Polish

Published: Number 1(26)/2021, pp. 8-20.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2021.1.8

Download: Download
Number of downloads: 693

Law and Morality from the Legal Point of View: Particular Morality and Cooperative Morality

Prof. UŁ dr hab. Jerzy Leszczyński

University of Łódź

English abstract: This article describes the relation between law and morality when applied to solving legal problems. The relation in question is not understood solely as a conflict between law and morality which implies a need to decide in favor of one or the other. Indeed, moral contents of law make references to morality not only possible but necessary. The limit for those references is established by legal equality principle. Moreover, an internal variety of morality is being analyzed. Some part of it needs to be secured by law what in itself does not harm social and individual identity, that is, public and private morality is distinguished, then minimal and maximal morality – concepts proposed by Michael Walzer. That idea taken from a legal point of view leads to seemingly best funded proposal: particular and cooperative morality.

Keywords: minimal morality, maximal morality, Walzer, public morality, cooperative morality

Language: Polish

Published: Number 4(25)/2020, pp. 42-53.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2020.4.42

Download: Download
Number of downloads: 857

« Previous Page