Legal research

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The legal fact research examines the actual appearance and realization of forms of law in social life. This branch of law often makes use of the methods of empirical social research .

The areas of application of this research area are diverse and affect almost all areas of life. Their results are an essential guide for legal policy .

Originally, legal facts meant those facts that stand “behind the norms”, those manifestations in which the law is actually brought to appearance in social practice. The more recent legal sociology has taken up this term.

history

Research into legal facts arose from the assertion of a distance between legal dogmatics and social reality. The law was perceived as alienated from social reality and should be tied more closely to rapidly changing social realities.

Specifically, the term was introduced in the early 20th century when a lawyer criticized legal teaching: Arthur Nussbaum published his programmatic book on legal factual research in 1914, thus presenting a reform project for the university education of lawyers. Nussbaum is familiar with the foundations of the legal sociology of the Austrian lawyer Eugen Ehrlich , published in 1913, and formulates legal factual research in a clear distinction - not as an empirical foundation - to legal sociology , not as a separate discipline, but on the one hand as the use of facts to revive, deepen and enrich the previous subject matter, on the other hand to obtain fruitful problems for individual scientific work within law.

Legal facts

What makes the term difficult to access right from the start is the fact that it is used in a central sense by several contemporaries at the same time. Eugen Ehrlich describes as legal facts in his foundation of the sociology of law about four main types (chapter V., foundation of the legal sociology) of facts, namely exercise, rule, possession and declaration of will. Ehrlich's legal facts are thus closer to Georg Simmel's “social a prioris ” than to the empirically investigated phenomena that have been assigned to legal factual research for processing since the middle of the 20th century.

Despite the dogmatic classification attempted here, the core of legal fact research is a fairly simple one. It includes dealing with the actual circumstances of the legal reality, e.g. B .:

  • Research into the duration of processes
  • Influence of lobbyists on the legislative process
  • Number of abortions etc.

The research on legal facts can only convey factual material that can represent the legal-political decision-making aid. However, the necessary decisions cannot be replaced by research into legal facts.

present

Today, very heterogeneous research approaches are referred to as legal fact research. In the last few decades the term has been used as a term with little bias for very different research projects in the discursive field of legal theory and legal sociology . Some references:

  • The Institute for Legal Fact Research at the University of Konstanz “has the task of carrying out research projects which are intended to show the actual principles, effects and deviations from existing and planned legal regulations and their causes. In doing so, the institute makes use of its practical experience in legislating and applying the law through an institutionalized collaboration with scientifically working practitioners. "
  • The Institute for Legal Facts Research Heidelberg “accompanies the research projects financed by the ProJustitia Foundation. The institute also supports the foundation in developing legal policy statements based on the research results obtained. In cooperation with the ProJustitia Foundation, it also evaluates the numerous submissions from those affected by judicial measures. In future the Heidelberg Institute for Legal Facts Research e. V. also carry out surveys with investigators, judges and lawyers at regular intervals in order to be able to address possible grievances at an early stage. "
  • The publishing house Duncker & Humblot publishes a series of publications on legal sociology and legal fact research, the thematic breadth of which gives an overview of the diversity of the discussion of legal facts.
  • At the Institute for Civil Law at the University of Innsbruck, regular conferences on current developments and research results have been held since 2007 under the title “Legal Fact Research - Today”. In the same year the series “Innsbruck Contributions to Legal Facts Research” was founded, in which the conference proceedings 2007 have appeared so far. Volumes two and three of this series will appear in autumn 2009 and will be presented on the occasion of the 3rd conference “Legal Facts Research Today” on December 17, 2009 in Innsbruck.
  • The Institute for Legal Fact Research on German and European Company Law at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, founded in 2005 , deals with questions of factual law in the areas of corporate and capital market law (e.g. stock corporation law, GmbH law, takeover law). The effects of existing / changed legal framework conditions on the German and European corporate landscape are examined (also within the framework of contract research for third parties). To do this, u. a. Survey studies carried out and data sources such as the commercial register and the electronic federal gazette evaluated. Articles by the institute are regularly published in the journal Die Aktiengesellschaft under the heading Stock Corporation Law in Figures . Monthly data on the distribution of the limited liability company (limited liability) GmbH variant introduced on November 1, 2008 is compiled on the research facility's website . So far, for example, empirical research projects have been carried out on the compulsory exclusion of minority shareholders, on the manifestations of unlisted stock corporations, on the spread of one-third participation in Germany or on the effects of the MoMiG.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ In Google Book Klaus F. Röhl , Das Dilemma der Rechtsstatsachenforschung, 1974
  2. ^ Institute for Legal Fact Research Heidelberg
  3. ↑ Series of publications on legal sociology and legal factual research
  4. ↑ http://www.uibk.ac.at/rtf
  5. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from October 31, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.rewi.uni-jena.de

literature

  • Arthur Nussbaum: The legal fact research. Its importance for science and teaching , JCB Mohr, 1914.
  • Manfred Rehbinder : The founding of legal sociology by Eugen Ehrlich , Berlin, Duncker & Humblot 1967 (Volume 6 of the series of publications by the Institute for Legal Sociology and Legal Facts Research of the Free University of Berlin, edited by Prof. Dr. Ernst E. Hirsch).
  • Eugen Ehrlich : Foundation of the Sociology of Law , Munich and Leipzig 1913.
  • Arthur Nussbaum. A Tribute , Columbia Law Review Vol. 57, January 1957, No. 1.
  • Wolfgang Hein: Legal Facts Research Today , University Press Konstanz 1986.

Web links