Legal-theoretical views on justice in law

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Abstract

The paper describes a comprehensive analysis of theoretical and legal approaches to the concept of justice in law. The main doctrinal concepts of justice are studied, including the legal libertarian (Nersesyants), positivistic (Shershenevich, Kelsen, Hart), natural law (Finnis, Fuller, Maritain, Dworkin), neo-Kantian (Stammler), and sociological (Ihering, Ehrlich). The author shows a fundamental polarization of scientific views, from the understanding of justice as an immanent property of law to its interpretation as an external moral assessment. The paper discusses the problematic relationship between justice and legality and analyzes the phenomenon of unjust law in terms of Radbruch formula and through Arendt’s criticism of totalitarian law abidingness. It focuses on operationalization of the abstract category of justice in specific legal institutions and its national perception in various legal systems. The paper analyzes contemporary Russian concepts, including the integrative approach to legal understanding, Alekseev’s theory of legal means, and Polyakov’s communicative theory, and discusses the influence of digital transformation on the development of new concepts of justice. The author reasonably concludes that theoretical discrepancies may be overcome through applied industry research, including the criminal proceedings, where the concept of justice has operational certainty based on national legal profile.

About the authors

Andrey A. Timoshenko

University of the Prosecutor`s Office of the Russian Federation

Author for correspondence.
Email: antim1@yandex.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0003-2562-0022

Cand. Sci. (Jurisprudence), Associate Professor

Russian Federation, Moscow

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