Front cover image for The concept of socialist law

The concept of socialist law

In aiming to remedy the contempt for law prominent in socialist writings, this book looks at liberal jurisprudence to see how it fares in a socialist theory which takes a constructivist approach to law. The rule of law, natural and legal rights and obligations are among the topics covered.
Print Book, English, 1990
Clarendon Press ; Oxford University Press, Oxford, New York, 1990
xiv, 195 pages ; 23 cm
9780198252467, 0198252463
19971357
Part 1 The "withering away" of law and egoism; socialism and egoism; law and ideology; socialism and ideology; law and class rule; socialism and class rule. Part 2 Justice and the sources of socialist law: the natural law position; the legal positivist critique; socialist positivism; hard cases and the morality of law; praxis and the identification of law; the justice of law - the show trials, the comrades' courts, the parasite laws. Part 3 Freedom and the rule of law: capitalist freedom and the rule of law; capitalist domination and the rule of law; the rule of law and freedom under socialism; the rule of law under capitalism - three cases - the biases of the judiciary, access to legal representation, the enforcement agenda. Part 4 Human rights and political reform: the concepts of human rights; human rights in Marxist theory and practice; the positivist critique; natural rights and social justice; natural rights versus human rights; what human rights do we have? Part 5 Altruism and rights under socialist circumstances of justice: the circumstances of justice; legal rights in a Golden Age; law as a vehicle of altruism; altruism and self-interest; rights as trumps. Part 6 Self-government and the obligation to obey socialist law: obligation derived from consent; the radical alternative; a critique of the radical, participatory alternative - the case of the dissenting minority, the role of extenuating circumstances, the problem of the non-participants.
Revision of the author's thesis (D. Phil.)--Balliol College, Oxford University, 1987