Brazilian law and legal culture in the XIX th century
José Reinaldo de Lima Lopes2018, Brazililan Law and Legal Culture in the XIX Century
Sign up for access to the world's latest research
Abstract
After reviewing the place of legal history in Brazilian legal academia, and the theoretical basis of its recent development in the author's own work, the paper takes two paradigmatic fields of legal culture in 19 th century Brazil: the organization of the Judicial Power and the establishment of an Administrative Jurisdiction. Both reflect the importance of liberal conservative ideals in monarchical Brazil, and at the same time the importance of debates concerning the very idea of law and justice. The last two sections try to show how legal scholars were involved in these debates. Brasilianisches Recht und Rechtskultur im 19. Jahrhundert. Nach der Verortung von Rechtsgeschichte in der brasilianischen Rechtswissenschaft und der theoretischen Basis in der jüngsten Entwicklung in der eigenen Arbeit des Autors greift dieser Gastbeitrag zwei paradig-matische Felder der Rechtskultur im Brasilien des 19. Jahrhunderts auf: die Organisation der Judikative und die Gründung einer Verwaltungsgerichtsbarkeit. Beide spiegeln die Bedeutung liberal-konservativer Ideale im monarchischen Brasilien wider und zugleich die Bedeutung von Debatten über die Idee von Recht und Gerechtigkeit. Die letzten beiden Abschnitte versu-chen zu zeigen, wie Rechtswissenschaftler an diesen Debatten beteiligt waren. Legal scholarship and law itself have changed dramatically in the second half of the 20 th century. The creation of constitutional courts in several jurisdictions , the incorporation of social, welfare, and identity rights in constitutions , globalization, the presence of a transnational network of private actors in business transactions, the appeal to constant institutional borrowings and transplant across national borders, and finally the rise of the virtual world, all of these are important factors in the process of social and legal change. Legal theory has entered into a fruitful dialogue with new epistemological trends, such as analytical and hermeneutical philosophies 1). Legal historiography has also felt the influence of different strands of theory, many of them shaped *) Law School, University of São Paulo 1) In line with the wittgensteinian tradition as suggested by John Searle and the hermeneutic tradition of H.-G. Gadamer, particularly the way both traditions converge in the work of K a rl-O t t o A p el , starting with Transformation der Philo-DIESE DATEI DARF NUR ZU PERSÖNLICHEN ZWECKEN UND WEDER DIREKT NOCH INDIREKT FÜR ELEKTRONISCHE PUBLIKATIONEN DURCH DIE VERFASSERIN ODER DEN VERFASSER DES BEITRAGS GENUTZT WERDEN. BEITRAG AUS: ZEITSCHRIFT DER SAVIGNY-STIFTUNG FÜR RECHTSGESCHICHTE, GERMANISTISCHE ABTEILUNG
Key takeaways
- My idea is that these historians were looking for legal scholarship at the wrong places: the most important representatives of Brazilian legal culture were a small part of a larger number of law graduates, and an even smaller fraction of people who did not have a law degree but were authorized by the courts to practice law at the local level.
- The distinction between legal scholars in the law schools ( jurisconsultos) and lawyers in high places, such as high courts, the Council of State, or the Senate should not be regarded as a problem or a sign of lack of legal studies.
- However, until recently there had been little interest in the history of legal institutions, such as law schools, courts or even the Council of State.
- Could the relation between law and courts, law and law schools, law and law enforcement agencies be like the relation between medicine and hospitals, or clinics, or medical schools?
- But of course it kept the basic view that law was an instrument of something beyond law itself.
