legal culture

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

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Emotional Labour of Judges

Dr Maciej Wojciechowski, Dr Bogna Dowgiałło, Prof. dr hab. Dorota Rancew-Sikora

University of Gdańsk

English abstract: Our article concentrates on emotions as related to the functioning of man in the judicial system seen as a modern bureaucratic institution. Special attention is given to the work of judges due to their key position in this system. In legal discourse there is a dominating normative idea of a judge as a decision-making subject free of any emotional factors influencing their judgment. According to this traditional approach, a decision biased even in the slightest way by emotions could not be regarded as impartial, whereas judicial impartiality is regarded as one of the core values of the justice system. Our standpoint assumes not only that judges experience emotions but also asserts that they are being manifested in varied ways. Our analysis is based on Arlie Hochschild’s conception of emotional labour. Such labour is being performed when an individual reflects on his or her feelings and makes an effort either to change or to inhibit emotions which are regarded as misfitting. The necessity of emotional work is a result of cultural feeling and expression rules. It seems prima facie that there is one clear expression rule regarding displaying emotions by the judge in the Polish legal culture: no emotions allowed. However, contrary to possible reconstructed declarations and recommendations warning judges against showing emotions, the rules of expressing them in Polish courts are not unequivocal. We claim that one can distinguish between unconditional and conditional rules of expressing emotions. The former relate to expressing emotions concerning non-professional participants, and conditional rules of expressing emotions relate to professional participants in the hearing. There are situations in which an emotional reaction is reasonable, because it represents certain values to which the justice department adheres, and those in which judges regret showing annoyance or anger. The goal of the emotional labour performed is not only a realization of the value of impartiality, but also the balance of the judges that allows them to efficiently fulfil their role.

Keywords: Arlie Hochschild, legal culture, judicial impartiality

Language: English

Published: Number 1(10)/2015, pp. 97-109

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2015.1.97

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Number of downloads: 188

On three limitations of the lawyers’ power

Dr Paweł Jabłoński, Dr Przemysław Kaczmarek

University of Wrocław

English abstract: According to the initially assumed concept of limitations of lawyers’ power the most important elements of those limitations are: legal text, legal culture, and ethics. This structure is characterized by the relations where the anterior element defines the framework of the latter, i. e. text affects legal culture and ethics, while legal culture affects ethics. However, exceptions apply where the latter element might lead to the collapse of the framework of the primary factor (for instance, interpretation contra legem based on axiological argumentation). The aforementioned structure of limitations of legal power is complemented by interaction of various other elements, such as social expectations, political entanglement (depending on the extent to which it is not consumed by ethics) and non-judicial expertise.

Keywords: limitations of the lawyers’ power, legal text, legal culture, ethics

Language: Polish

Published: Number 1(6)/2013, pp. 93-108.

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Number of downloads: 81

The cultural grounds of Japanese criminal law in action

Prof. dr hab. Jacek Izydorczyk

University of Łódź

English abstract: The author describes the Japanese way of criminal justice in practice (law in action). But he shows the Japanese law in action as a ‘product’ of a quite different culture then the culture of Western World. First, presents in a glance history and religion of Japan. Next, shows development of new laws for Japan during XIX century when Japanese decided to ‘escape from Asia’ and join the Western World. Third part of the paper, explains the criminal justice system in contemporary Japan. The main part of the article focuses on Japanese criminal law as an everyday law in action (the law in action quite often very difficult to understand for Westerners). According to the author there are five main examples of those cultural grounds of Japanese criminal law in action. First – the Japanese way of preventing crimes; second – the Japanese idea what is (and what for actually is) criminal law; third – problem of so-called the opportunism principle which really dominates the criminal procedure in Japan; fourth – phenomenon of Boryokudan (Yakuza) in Japan; and last (fifth) – question what actually means the principle of fair trial (i.e. protection of defendants rights) in Japan in real life. The author’s conclusion is simple: law in action always depends from the culture of a country. That is why – when we talk on Japan – much more important is to understand such cultural grounds than just to know the legal system described by official ‘paper laws’.

Keywords: Japanese criminal law, justice, legal culture, prevention

Language: Polish

Published: Number 2(15)/2012, pp. 77-91.

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Number of downloads: 62

Systems Theory and Puzzles of Legal Culture

Dr Jan Winczorek

University of Warsaw

English abstract: Legal culture is a concept as central to legal studies and sociology of law as difficult to define. It aims to serve important theoretical needs but it is also responsible for some puzzles that trouble legal and socio-legal scholars. Some of them are quite famous: the puzzle of the nature of Japanese litigiousness, the puzzle of differing German and Dutch legal cultures, or, recently, the issue of cultural defence. Some are lesser known, like the multitude of courts’ adjudicating strategies in Poland’s allegedly unitary legal culture. The paper argues that the problems of such nature are a conceptual artefact, a result of objectifying understanding of legal culture as a phenomenon. It is stressed that in such studies more weight should be put on the immediate, procesual nature of investigated phenomena. In order to support these claims, conceptual machinery of systems theory is utilised. First, a general view of N. Luhmann regarding the notion of culture is accepted and applied to the idea of legal culture. Further it is demonstrated how the aims served by the notion of legal culture can be achieved by appealing to such theoretical concepts as structural coupling, first- and second- order observation, and above all – temporal nature of social systems. A general conclusion of the paper is that in the study of “legal culture” an evolutionary perspective is unavoidable.

Keywords: Niklas Luhmann, Systems Theory, legal culture, structural coupling, first-order observation, second-order observation, temporal nature of social systems

Language: English

Published: Number 1(4)/2012, pp. 106-125.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36280/AFPiFS.2012.1.106

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Number of Downloads: 113

David J. Luban’s legal ethics: moral evaluations of acts, subjectivity, responsibility

Dr hab. Przemysław Kaczmarek

University of Wrocław

English abstract: The purpose of this paper is to present the theory of legal ethics by David J. Luban. The reading of this American philosopher’s project I would like to propose focuses around the three pillars mentioned in the title: the moral evaluation of acts, subjectivity, and moral responsibility. Luban’s theory postulates maintaining the autonomy of an individual performing a lawyer’s role in relation to the institutional structure. Therefore, a lawyer’s activity should be characterised by anxiety and questions ‘what should I do?’ The main axis of Luban’s project is criticism of the standard view supporting the principle that institutional morality is independent of social or individual morality. The principle of neutrality assumes that the morality of a professional role should be limited to the institutional dimension. Such an approach is supposed to prevent (especially in case of an attorney) any individual assessments of the client’s behaviour, or – in a broader sense – performing the professional role at one’s own discretion.

Keywords: legal culture, legal ethics, professional role, subjectivity/structure, moral responsibility

Language: Polish

Received: 06.06.2017
Accepted: 16.08.2017

Published: Number 1(16)/2018, pp. 21-33.

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Number of downloads: 121

The ius et lex distinction in the contemporary legal science

Dr Maciej Pichlak

University of Wroclaw

English abstract: The aim of the paper is to clarify the concepts of ius and lex, as well as to indicate main interpretations of these concepts in the contemporary jurisprudence. For the concepts of ius and lex are not only of historical significance (as used in the legal discourse of the ancient Rome), but they are present in the entire history of the Western legal culture – since ancient times until today. Owing to this rich historical heritage, as well as to the very nature of the discussed concepts, it is impossible to offer classical definitions of ius and/or lex. Therefore, a proper analysis of their meaning will lead to determination of their ‘connotative field’: a map of associations and theories related to these concepts.

In order to realize this task, the paper offers three basic typologies that allow to order mutual relations between existing theoretical standpoints in this field. The first typology concerns a practical function of ius in the legal order. We can distinguish here theories which perceive such a function as mainly negative, positive, or mediating (optimalising). The second typology treats on the sources of binding force of ius. One can indicate positivistic, legalnaturalistic and hermeneutic intepretation of this problem. Finally, the third typology regards mutual relations between ius and lex, which may be described either as hierarchical, or as functionally differentiated. These considerations allow to conclude that the usefulness of such a dualistic way of thinking about the law is ever persisting. Within this perspective the legal order is conceived as containing statutory law (lex) as well as nonwritten binding standards, independent from law–making authorities (ius).

Keywrods: ius et lex, legal culture, law beyond statutory law, dualism of law

Language: Polish

Received: 09.03.2017
Accepted: Załączniki 03.05.2017

Published: Number 2(15)/2017, pp. 49-59.

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Number of downloads: 336