The Utility of Legal Theory for the Adjudication of the Law

In this exposition is given a survey of points in which legal theory can be of direct utility for the judge who is in the excercise of his office. The conclusions will apply to any judge : civil, criminal, military and administrative

Basic Features of the Belgian Legal System.

One gives an outline of the presuppositions of Belgian lawyers on each of the levels epistomologie, methodologie, ideology. Together they form the paradigm of Belgian legal culture

Obstacles and opportunities for the harmonisation of law in Europe

In this work the author would like to discuss the matter of unification of law in Europe using the example of laws relating to issues of privacy

Legal cultures, legal paradigms and legal doctrine: towards a new model for comparative law

The aim of this article is to re-consider the theoretical foundations of comparative law in the light of markedly differing world legal cultures. In essence the reader is presented with the fact that there appears to be within comparative law, differing levels of the enterprise, ranging from sociological/anthropological research carried out accross significant cultural divides to comparison accross the borders of nation states who find their laws being compared against a similar cultural and paradigmatical background. The article considers aspects of legal culture and how they might be harnessed in the reconstruction of a paradigm of legal families. The article also reconsiders the importance of legal doctrine for comparative analysis, from the internal perspective of one of the four identified legal cultural families - western legal culture. In the context of the reconsideration of theoretical approaches certain concepts relating to a defintion of law need to be considered these being: law as rules, law as culture, and law as an instrument of integration. Some paradigmatical fields and elements are been distinguished which might be useful as a framework for comparative analysis and for identifying new ‘legal families’ replacing the traditional, but outdated, ‘legal families’ distinctions