Review article
Legal Theory in Socialist Yugoslavia: In Memoriam Eugen Pusić (1916 – 2010)
Ivan Padjen
orcid.org/0000-0001-7606-2337
; Chair of General Theory of Law and State, Philosophy of Law and Public Policies at the Faculty of Law, University of Rijeka, Rijeka, Croatia
Abstract
The paper, written in 1988 as a contribution to a reader on social sciences in Yugoslavia that was never published, is probably the best remembrance of Pusić’s basic research of law because it puts the research in the context of the then theory of law. Furthermore, it is still the only comprehensive overview of legal theory in socialist Yugoslavia. This theory is interesting as a permanent transformation of Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy, whose methods and interests in the final years of the Yugoslav state corresponded to the matrix of legal theory in the West, yet remained engrossed with the social context of the law, in accordance with Marxist tradition. Pusić made the most important contribution to the study of the Yugoslav socialist law. His analysis of social functions of law began with the claim that the law had initially been a method of regulation that simplified social problems by acknowledging exclusive but transferable minority rights. The inclusion of previously ignored interests into the execution of political power (democracy), into distribution of economic resources (social ownership), and into regulation of family relations (gender equality), reduced the tensions necessary for the functioning of any social system. Advocating gradual changes, Pusić suggested that solutions should be sought in the network of self-management and in the adaptation of legal institutions.
Keywords
theory of law in the socialist Yugoslavia; Eugen Pusić
Hrčak ID:
130529
URI
Publication date:
18.12.2013.
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