Legal understanding as the initial ideological basis for understanding legal culture. Formation of a national legal culture. Axiological essence of legal culture and its functional role in the development of Kazakh statehood.
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CONTENT
Introduction
1 The concept of legal culture……………….
1.1 B basic categories of the “legal culture” phenomenon.
1.2 The idea of the rule of law as a key paradigm of a civilized
democratic society.
- Legal understanding as the initial ideological basis of understanding
legal culture.
2 Legal culture as a system-forming factor in the formation and development of statehood in the Republic of Kazakhstan…………………….
- Formation of a national legal culture.
- Axiological essence of legal culture and its functional role in the development of Kazakhstani statehood.
- Legal culture of the individual.
- The structure of legal culture……….
- Mentality and its influence on legal culture.
- Legal consciousness as the most important component of legal culture.
- Legal literacy and attitude to the law.
Conclusion
List of used literature
INTRODUCTION
The era of totalitarianism is over. The prospects for the development of democracy in the Republic of Kazakhstan are inextricably linked, first of all, with the implementation of the democratic principles proclaimed in the 1995 Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan, with the formation and development of democratic institutions, the formation and strengthening of an effective legal field, with a general increase in culture in society, especially legal culture. Now new contours of legal reality are emerging after three quarters of a century of lawless existence under a totalitarian regime. Much in this new emerging reality is not familiar to us; everyone needs to master it and learn it - legislators, civil servants, scientists, citizens.
The totalitarian ideological and psychological heritage, which every Kazakh citizen born in the pre-perestroika period involuntarily possesses, mainly had a negative impact on the state and well-being of society and the individual. Man has lost, first of all, the true sense of ownership. Not that notorious feeling of a master, which during the inglorious decline of the USSR, official propaganda tried in vain to awaken in a working person deprived of one of the main human rights - the right to property, but the feeling of a true master of his land, his destiny, his thoughts and actions.
The general level of legal culture is currently very low
Kazakh society. There is a significant gap between
proclaimed constitutional norms and real legal relations. The law-making process does not function optimally, since there are no objective criteria for assessing the effectiveness of current legislation. There are numerous and widespread facts of violations of legal principles and norms by government bodies and officials. “In an era of change, in the conditions of a transition period, as a rule, departmental, narrowly selfish interests begin to prevail in society, crushing the interests of the entire society and the state, and even more so of the individual.” One of the costs of market relations is the decline in morality and morality in society, the worship of a fairly large part of it to the “golden calf”. The population is losing faith in the possibility of quickly building a legal social state, creating an effective legal system capable of protecting people both from the arbitrariness and lawlessness of the bureaucratic bureaucracy, and from criminal structures. And in the legal consciousness itself, the “ideology of inextricable risk” is affirmed, when the triumph of law is associated not with establishing and guaranteeing order in society, but with obtaining personal gain, satisfying selfish interests, with the predominance of the so-called “law of the strong” or “fist law.”
Systematic work is needed to strengthen and improve legal education and legal education of the population, which will serve to increase the level of legal culture and create an atmosphere of respect for the Law in society. Only an educated majority, with high morality and a developed sense of justice, possessing legal knowledge, can form the backbone of a mature civil society. A weak civil society is one of the conditions for the unhindered existence of an anti-legal, autocratic regime.
Young sovereign Kazakhstan is now experiencing a historical stage of laying the foundations of the rule of law and the formation of civil society, one of the characteristic features of which is high level legal culture. In the republic, mechanisms for interaction between the rule of law and civil society and increasing the level of legal culture are still being created and debugged. To form a civil society with civilized market relations, it is necessary, first of all, to develop individual legal awareness and understanding of the normative and regulatory role of law, as well as the individual’s ability to act independently within the legal field in order to realize their legally protected interests on the basis of self-regulation based on learned values legal culture. The theory of natural law established the priority of the individual as an independent and valuable being, which is also recognized by world legal doctrine. Outside of these conditions, civil society will not be able to subordinate the state machine to its will.
In the formation of the legal culture of society, the most important role belongs to jurists, both because they are directly related to the key links of the social system, primarily with the branches of government and the sphere of property, being often included in political and commercial structures, and because the state of the current legislation significantly, and not rarely and decisively, depends on the state of legal science, the creative activity of legal practitioners and legal theorists. The science of law and legal scientists working effectively in all sectors of life of the state and society must occupy an adequate place in the hierarchical social system.
Indicator high degree legal culture is not only, or rather, not so much knowledge of current normative legal acts (or even the ability to competently compose their texts), but a respectful attitude towards the Law as such, that is, towards legal reality, reflecting universal human ideals, ideas and principles of justice, equality, freedom and humanism, as well as strict adherence to the letter and spirit of the Law.
In this regard, the role of legal education and legal education in the formation of the legal culture of society is particularly significant.
The proposed study examines a number of problematic issues of both the theory of legal culture and the practice of its formation in the Republic of Kazakhstan.
1 The concept of legal culture
1.1 B basic categories of the phenomenon “legal culture”
Among the objects of scientific knowledge, culture is one of the objects that represent a multi-valued, complex phenomenon that covers all human life. In archeology, there is a concept - “cultural layer”, which is understood as a layer of earth containing traces of past human activity; Archaeological finds make it possible to study the life of people of ancient times. “A cultural layer is a historically established system of strata formed as a result of human activity. The thickness of the cultural layer depends on many reasons, ranging from a few centimeters to 30-35 meters.
Nowadays the cultural layer covers almost the entire surface of the globe accessible to humans.
Culture is a single, diverse, and ambiguous phenomenon - in a broad sense it means everything that has been and is being created by humanity - from tools to household items, from habits, customs, the very way of life of people to science and art, religion and atheism , morality and philosophy. In cultural studies, it is customary to note the cross-cutting nature of culture since it is that phenomenon “which, figuratively speaking, penetrates into all pores of people’s social life, as if spread throughout the entire body of the social organism.”
This property of culture has always made it difficult to transform this phenomenon into an integral object of scientific research, “Culture is an extraordinary complex of factors, national values - spiritual and material: allowing a person to feel not out of place on earth, in the world around him,” writes Olzhas Suleimenov. - No matter how we approach culture, it seems that this side should not be overlooked. It is important to look at human history not so much as a process of survival, but how to live in society and the natural environment. In other words, as a culture. The primary meaning of the term “culture” is refinement, polish. Culture as a result of the influence on a person (and people) of the near and distant (in time and space) environment. Impact by hatred and love, fear and joy, hunger and coldness, blasphemy and praise, damask steel and gold, sun and moon, gentle sunrise, bloody sunset, memory, imagination and dream.”
Traditionally, human culture is divided into material and spiritual. However, material culture is at the same time spiritual. The spiritual side in works of material culture is the rational energy of people contained in them (not only mental, but also moral), which serves only as a means for realizing this material content.
Man as a biological being acquires and assimilates culture in the process of social communication. Each new generation preserves and increases it and passes it on to the next. This process is the basis of socialization. As a result of the assimilation of values, beliefs, norms, rules and ideals, a person’s personality is formed and his behavior is regulated.
The universal human culture that has emerged to date is a set of universal spiritual values, ideals, attitudes and ways of thinking.
Basic cultural values include principles and ideals such as humanism, tolerance (tolerance and respect for other people’s opinions), mutual understanding and harmony. The universal principle of humanism is of greatest importance: it is now addressed to every person, proclaiming everyone’s right to life, freedom and happiness. Humanism presupposes unity in diversity.
Understanding culture is inextricably linked with the concept of “civilization”. In the most general form, “civilization” is defined as a socio-cultural system, including the socio-economic conditions of society, its ethnic, religious foundations, the degree of harmonization of man and nature, as well as the level of economic, political, social and spiritual freedom of the individual. Civilization and its values influence not only the social, but also the state organization of society.
Civilization and culture are interconnected, but not identical concepts. Civilization is one of the stages in the development of culture. Modern researchers often view civilization as something external to a person, influencing him and opposing him, while culture is always his internal property, shows the measure of his development and serves as a symbol of his spiritual wealth.
Only the priority of human rights, the guarantee of his freedom and
integrity, the revival of his spirituality and his own transcendental roots, the strengthening of his faith in a higher order of things, in the law - this is the paradigm of the coming reorganization of the world.
A civilized approach can be the basis for understanding legal culture and identifying its types. In this vein, one can define civilization as an integral, self-developing cultural and historical system, which includes all the social and non-social components of the historical process, the entire totality of material and spiritual goods created by man.
This proposal is reflected in modern legal literature, where such authors as S.S. Alekseev, R.Z. Livshits, V.N. Khropanyuk believe that the civilizational approach is currently becoming the most universal scientific criterion for the typology of state and legal phenomena, allowing take into account the totality of social factors that give a particular state qualities of a certain type.
A civilized approach to understanding legal culture can help in solving many problems. With this approach, our understanding of the socio-psychological experience of a particular society and its mentality is enriched. A civilized approach allows us to put an end to the absolutization of the material and economic principle and put the impact on the state at the forefront, first of all, spiritual and moral non-cultural factors of social development. The use of this approach will make it possible to demonstrate the use of the mechanism of cultural and historical continuity and gradualism within the framework of specific social organisms, in the study of specific societies and states.
The civilized approach is fully consistent with modern ideas about culture as a purely social way of activity of man and society. It allows us to consider culture in its entirety, without excluding a single structural element, which makes it possible to reveal the connection of state power with value guidelines, the prevailing worldview, and morality.
The progress of civilization, with all its contradictions, is still associated with the development and improvement of its social mechanisms, which ensure the development of productive forces, technology, science, and support the corresponding dynamics of social relations.
Another task is to identify the human dimension, the mechanisms of formation of the personality of a civilized person, the analysis of culture as a measure of human development, his ability to act. It is also solved by a civilizational approach to history.
- The idea of the rule of law as a key paradigm of a civilized democratic society
Human civilization is a phenomenon, at a certain stage of development, in which the state appears - in the form of a political unification of people on a territorial basis, and law - as a way of regulating complex social relations.
There is pre-state and state law. In this case, law should be understood as a measure of individual freedom in society, as an order based on the ideas of universality, obligation, and equality.
Pre-state law existed in the form of a certain rigid, strict order built on customs and traditions. Ideas about humanism, equality, justice and freedom in the pre-state period depended on the level of production and were based, first of all, on the principles of kinship, collectivity and community of economy. State law is a higher level of development of the legal system, since it is enshrined in strictly established forms, expresses the will of the entire society and is ensured by the power of the state. Thus, law and the state are interconnected phenomena.
The concepts of a legal and fair state are identical, and the ideas about creating a legal, fair state, the activities of which should be based on humane laws, appeared in ancient times.
At the same time, there are two diametrically opposed sides in the state: on the one hand, it is designed, it would seem, to serve the interests of the individual, of the entire society; and on the other hand, state power almost always ends up in the hands of the richest, propertied classes, strata, elites, social groups and individuals.
The development of the idea of the rule of law was greatly influenced by the writings of Plato and Aristotle. The ideal state and reasonable, fair laws are interpreted by Plato as the implementation of ideas and the maximum possible embodiment of the world of ideas in earthly political and legal life.
Aristotle developed a doctrine of right and law based on the science of analytics. For Aristotle, law personifies political justice and serves as the norm for political relations between people. “The concept of justice,” Aristotle believes, “is connected with the idea of the state, since law, which serves as a criterion of justice, is the regulating norm of political communication.” In the most developed civilized states of the West, the theory of the rule of law has become a reality to a certain extent, although, apparently, building an ideal, truly democratic state is impossible, just as it is impossible to achieve abstract justice. For example, for last years In some legislative innovations and judicial practice of the Federal Republic of Germany, there is a tendency to limit the principles of the rule of law - in particular, the principle of fair judicial trial and equality of the parties involved in the case.
The corresponding changes made both to the Criminal Procedure Code and to judicial practice entail broad restrictions on the fundamental rights and freedoms of not only the accused, but also all other persons involved in a particular case.
However, in general, the policy of modern rule-of-law states is aimed primarily at resolving general social issues. Therefore, the emergence of the term “welfare state” is completely justified. This term fits well into the conceptual apparatus of the rule of law state. It appears in many constitutions, including those of the Republic of Kazakhstan, and is directly related to the state’s social support for the individual. But to an even greater extent, this term refers to state support for certain social strata: people with low incomes, pensioners, children, youth, single women with children, the unemployed and others. Degree indicated social support depends not only on the strength of pressure groups representing various segments of the population, but also on the material conditions of society and the capabilities of the state.
In a rule-of-law state there must be developed " middle class" The policies of countries that consider themselves to be rule-of-law states, first of all, meet the requirements of this society, which includes small and medium-sized businesses. It is this stratum that is most interested in stability and the exclusion of any revolutionary upheavals.
A truly legal democratic social state can be considered one in which, as a result of democratic development, a sufficiently high legal consciousness of society and the legal culture of the majority of citizens, officials and government bodies have been formed. Without a developed legal consciousness, all other features of the rule of law will not be effectively implemented.
I would like to end this paragraph with a phrase said by the Russian philosopher V. Solovyov: “Without the state there would be no culture, without culture there would be no public morality, and without public morality, high personal virtue, even if it appeared by some miracle, could not carried out, would remain only a random and fruitless impulse."
- Legal understanding as the initial ideological basis for understanding legal culture
Modern legal science is faced with the task of rethinking many previous legal ideas and structures that have dominated domestic law for decades. To comprehend the deep science of the essence of legal culture, its objective internal laws, problems and development trends, one should determine the basic concept of the theory of law - “legal understanding”. In this case, it is necessary to proceed from the content of the category “understanding”. In the “Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language” by V.I. Dahl, the words “understand”, “understand” are defined as “to comprehend with the mind, to cognize, to comprehend, to grasp, to grasp the meaning, sense, to see the cause and consequences”.
Based on this interpretation of the word “understand”, it follows that the term “legal understanding” does not mean only the definition of law, but presupposes comprehension, knowledge of the meaning of law, its genesis and development trends, possible evolution.
In this regard, the judgment of L.I. Petravitsky that there cannot be a science of law if there is no “scientific definition of law” deserves attention, because, firstly, without this concept it is impossible to establish any concepts of jurisprudence; secondly, without the concept of law it is impossible to establish the position of the science of law among other sciences, to determine the “logical neighborhood”. Without the concept of law, its study itself, that is, scientific work in the field of legal science in general, is not possible. “The problem of the concept of law is not “just” one of many problems of jurisprudence... but such a fundamental problem on the solution of which the very possibility of a science of law depends.”
The problem of legal understanding has always worried philosophers. This is due to the fact that law is one of the most complex, multifaceted social phenomena. Even Roman scholars drew attention to the fact that law is not exhausted by one sign or meaning; “Law,” wrote one of them (Paul), “is used in several senses. First, right means that which is always just and good,” this is natural law. In another sense, law is something that “is useful to everyone and many in any state, such is civil law” .
Despite such an old age of a long-standing problem, the search for legal understanding does not lose its relevance to this day. “There is a hidden mystery in the understanding of law that all researchers face and which forces people of different eras to return to this problem again and again. And it happens every time amazing story: for a certain period of time, within the framework of a certain national legal family or legal system, relative unanimity is achieved in relation to the criteria of legal understanding, but as soon as the winds of social change blow, the need to agree on an eternal problem arises again and, therefore, a mystery in law, its phenomenon always remains uncomprehended, either in essence or due to some unexplored properties, direction in a given time space, general and particular purpose.”
The study of the meaning of law, its essence and concept, its place in the world, its value and significance, its role in the life of man, society and the state, in the destinies of the people and all mankind are the task of the philosophy of law, “The goal of reason is truth, and the philosophy of law busy searching for the truth about law."
Law cannot be placed next to such spiritual values as scientific truth, moral perfection, and religious shrines. Its meaning is more relative, its content is created immediately: by changing economic and social conditions. The relative importance of law gives rise to some theorists to define its value as very low. Some see law only as an ethnic minimum; others consider its coercion, that is, violence, to be integral.
But spiritual culture does not consist of valuable ones alone. A significant part of it consists of valuable formal properties of intellectual and volitional activity. And of all formal values, law, as the most fully developed and almost concretely tangible form, plays the most important role. Law disciplines a person to a much greater extent than logic and methodology or than systematic exercises of will. In contrast to the individual character of these latter disciplinary systems, law is primarily a social system, and, moreover, the only socially disciplinary system. Social discipline is created only by law: a disciplined society and a society with a developed legal order are identical concepts.
From this point of view, the content of law appears in a different light. The main and most essential content of law is freedom. True, this freedom is external, relative, conditioned by the social environment. But internal, more independent, spiritual freedom is possible only with the existence of external freedom, and the latter is the best school for the former.
Modern interest is based on the attitude towards it as a means of establishing reasonableness, justice, truth, authenticity, correctness. And, apparently, we should agree with M.L. Weisberg that of all forms of culture, society owes its stability to the greatest extent to law.
An analysis of the current positive law in our country has shown that the latest laws adopted by the Parliament of the Republic, decrees and other acts of the head of state, for the most part, do not yet contain norms that strictly bind state bodies. In the law enforcement practice of courts and other bodies, there is almost no substantiation of legal decisions by the norms of the Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan. In by-laws there are even more vague aspects, and sometimes direct or hidden violations of the Constitution and laws. In mass legal consciousness, law is identified by law, and law is and has been associated either with a declaration or with punishment.
IN perfect shape law must stand above the state and impose on it its own guidelines, dictated by civilization and culture. The state, in turn, will thereby become civilized and imbued with the values of universal human culture.
Law is a phenomenon of a civilized, not a formal order. The natural nature of law is precisely to provide normativity and guarantee, the reality of these dominant principles of human civilization: orderliness social life and human freedom, his autonomy, individuality. Moreover, the law implements this both in normal and in conflict developments.
Law accumulates universal human values accumulated over centuries, corrects the solution of social, class, ethnic, and other problems in the rule of law and legality, fills legislation with principles, presumptions, legal institutions, and guarantees. Legal regulation of public and interpersonal relationships, the resolution of contradictions arising in them according to the principle of justice is a constant organic function of law and a very significant part of historically developing social culture.
2 Legal culture as a system-forming factor in the formation and development of statehood in the Republic of Kazakhstan
- Formation of a national legal culture
Legal culture is specifically historical in nature. It is necessary to consider separately the legal culture of society of each historical period, each state. At the same time, in our opinion, we can identify a common feature that is used to characterize the legal culture of any society. This criterion is seen as the level and volume of human freedom, manifested in his legal status, in his rights and freedoms, which are ensured by the state legal system.
The freedom of people, as evidenced by the entire history of civilization, can be recognized and expressed only in legal form - only by recognizing actually different individuals as formally equal subjects of law and state.
In legal culture one can distinguish universal and national content. From the moment of its inception to the present day, world legal culture has known and continues to know thousands of specific varieties and forms. The theory of law and state and philosophy of law are faced with the task of ordering and systematizing, classifying and typologizing the entire diversity of legal cultures on a temporal, historical and sociocultural scale. To solve this problem, a civilizational approach seems more acceptable.
Based on this approach, we can talk about the legal culture of different societies, peoples and states. The legal culture of a particular country, as a rule, is formed in the process of contradictory interweaving of various value orientations and methods of political and legal participation of citizens, as well as national traditions, customs, methods of public recognition of a person and other circumstances that express stable features of the civilizational development of society and the state. Legal phenomena themselves in the national legal system appear as cultural values to the extent that they are recognized by legal consciousness and national mentality. It is the different degrees of moral and cultural-historical maturity of the ethnic and legal mentality of different peoples, the state of individual rights and freedoms, the nature of the relationship between the state and civil society that determine the possibilities of legal legitimation of the values of the legal world of a given country.
Since each ethnic group has its own, purely unique ethnic legal mentality, the content of the legal culture of a given people will have unique features.
Modern legal culture bears the imprint of the historical past, so the study of legal culture is impossible without turning to its origins.
The legal culture of the Kazakh traditional society is a developed system of legal values, a unique mechanism of its own that has existed for thousands of years, right up to the beginning XX century. The system of legal culture includes not only the norms of customary law, but also normative legal acts - erezhe, issued by the khans since the times of the proto-Turkic peoples. Erezh as a source of law requires independent study, so we will limit ourselves to turning to customary law, which is an indicator of the legal culture of the Kazakh people. A feature of Kazakh customary law is that physical coercion does not belong to its essence, it is an extreme, painful means of enforcement. In its natural form, the power of customary law lies in the authoritative influence of its volitional imperative.
The socio-psychological effect of customary law is based on the awareness of the need for certain behavior determined by the public and private needs and living conditions of members of society. For example, such a means of ensuring a violated right was barymta, that is, the lawful appropriation of the offender’s livestock.
Naturally, the potential for psychological coercion of customary law is not inexhaustible. In this regard, entities may use certain legal means. The essence of these means is the self-defense of the subject by forcing the violator to eliminate the legal imbalance. The legal culture of the Kazakhs was manifested in legal freedom and, above all, in a respectful attitude towards the individual and the absence of servile worship of authority, in non-enslavement to despotic foundations, relative freedom and equality of women, in a freedom-loving way of life, in developed oral folk art, in the entire spiritual culture of the people . A.I. Levshin admits that “all the neighbors of the Kyrgyz-Kazakhs are governed by either monarchical or despotic rule, all peoples related to them live in slavery, which is deplorable, and they (Kazakhs) do not know subordination in almost everything, they do not even have the name of the subject, nor the name of the owner. This is a very interesting phenomenon for politicians!”
In addition, an exceptional feature of the Kazakh people was the fact that using oral speech, through linguistic images, with the help of linguistic means - proverbs and sayings - the picture of the world was determined, while forming a certain type of worldview, which was mediated in the national consciousness, established in it, then becoming a cultural and legal tradition that shapes the legal orientations of the Kazakh people.
In Kazakh society, the memory of any important event preserved in the form of legend. What was said especially seemed to be court decisions. In this regard, T.M. Kulteleev rightly noted that the decisions of “biys before the second half XIX centuries, almost nowhere were they documented in writing. However, this did not prevent the biys from referring to the verdicts of the most influential biys when deciding cases.”
The famous Kazakh writer S. Seifullin called the decisions of the biys’ court “biledsh sezder” and proposed to consider them as a special folklore genre. B. Adambaev called them “sheshenj dau (sez)” (speech about a dispute), which meant one of the most important areas of oratory.
Kazakh culture has accumulated great values and the task of current generations is to preserve and increase them.
- Axiological essence of legal culture and its functional role in the development of Kazakhstan statehood
The objectivity of legal culture is expressed in the following. Legal culture acts as a phenomenon determined by ethnic and other factors in the life of society, materialized in the form of an appropriate form of state, democracy, a certain system of legislation, legal norms and other state-legal phenomena. It has all the features of an objective, natural phenomenon that exists regardless of the will of people who do not choose it at their own discretion, but find it ready, develop it and transform it.
The subjective nature of legal culture is expressed in the fact that it acts as a phenomenon that reflects the level of legal consciousness of society, groups, individuals, as well as the degree of execution, compliance, and use of legal regulations. Legal culture is a product of the creativity of specific individuals, relating “to the world of artificial things, conscious processes, voluntary actions”.
The role of legal culture is not limited to the spiritual sphere of society. It affects not only consciousness. But also on people’s behavior, their lifestyle. The subjective side of legal culture is the fact that a person who has a legal culture acts consciously as an individual, creatively and purposefully, while evaluating the law through the acquired legal and other life experience and through his needs. The subjectivity of legal culture is also the features of its manifestation in ethnosocial groups.
In modern legal literature there are different approaches to understanding legal culture. The criterion for the methodological effectiveness of various concepts of legal culture is the ability to translate abstractly formulated principles for understanding cultural and legal phenomena to the level of historical and legal systems, and vice versa.
The same legal phenomena can be assessed differently, depending on social, class, group, national, personal attitudes and interests. Even when creating generally valid criteria for assessing legal phenomena as positive or negative, it is necessary to take into account the historically relative nature of such assessments. The phenomena of legal culture are mobile and historically changeable.
The legal culture of a society is the entire sphere of material and spiritual reproduction of law, the legal practice of society in a specific historical period. In multinational states, the legal culture of society is very complex, as it includes both national and national legal cultures. The legal culture of human society is formed under the influence of universal human values, all existing state and national legal cultures. The legal culture of the society of a particular state contains both general, special, and individual characteristics. Just as there are no completely identical people, nations, states, there are no identical legal cultures. The maturity of a society and people depends on the level of general and legal culture.
Thus, a high level of legal culture of society is one of the signs of a rule of law state.
Legal culture in the Republic of Kazakhstan is at the initial stage of its formation. All its potential capabilities and objectively inherent advantages have yet to be revealed.
- Legal culture of the individual.
An objective consideration of legal culture is impossible without reviewing the problems associated with the legal culture of an individual, which is the foundation of the general concept of legal culture and fully reflects the degree and nature of the legal development of an individual, the level of its legality, and the direction of its activities. Therefore, these categories are in an organic relationship, defining and specifying each other. The process of formation of a person’s legal culture is characterized by versatility, a large set of components, a variety of relationships between qualitative, objective and subjective factors, a variety of forms of their manifestation and the dynamics of development.
The question of the legal culture of an individual is, in essence, a question of
human behavior in the field of law. Legal culture is a complex, complex property of a person, which largely determines the positive direction of his actions and actions in situations that have legal content.
The behavioral aspect of an individual’s legal culture directly depends on
spiritual-legal, ideological, psychological predetermination of this or that legal consciousness of the individual, because the action of the subject of law
determined by his legal attitudes, views, ideas, emotions, as well as his subconscious. In this sense, the legal culture of an individual represents the actualization of the content immanently inherent in legal consciousness.
The formation of individual legal consciousness does not occur “within subjectivity, but is mediated by the real life-active isolation and inclusion of the individual in life activity... The basis for the formation of individual forms of subjectivity are the real life relationships of the individual, and not their internal genesis.” In other words, an individual’s receptivity even to legal norms specifically aimed at its development depends not only on its activity, but also on the adequacy of these influences on the individual’s life, their timeliness, and on the relationship between upbringing itself and the practice of personal life.
Thus, the formation of a person’s legal culture is a complex process in which both social and psychological factors are interconnected. That is why the right-wing culture of an individual can be assessed in several forms. Thus, the legal culture of an individual as the degree of special development of an individual is manifested in its preparedness to perceive progressive ideas and laws, skills and abilities, as well as in the assessment of knowledge, skills, and real law. From these positions, it is characterized by the presence of legal cultural orientations. Also, the legal culture of an individual manifests itself as a certain level of activity of an individual, during which he acquires or develops his legal knowledge, skills and abilities. And, finally, it can exist as the cultural potential of the individual, that is, as a set of the appropriate degree of legal knowledge and skills, the skills of the individual.
One of the main ways of demonstrating the legal culture of an individual is the activity of his activities, the ability to realize his rights. The peculiarity of human legal culture is its connection with all areas of legal regulation, which are sometimes very different and require a kind of culture.
Possessing a high legal culture, a citizen is able to freely navigate, based on recognition of the social value of law and his own chosen behavior. In our time, this is especially important, since, on the one hand, there are still many morally outdated legal rules that do not meet the interests of the rule of law and civil society, and on the other hand, there is a threat of violation of the law under the guise of demagogic discussions about democracy.
3 Structure of legal culture
3.1 Mentality and its influence on legal culture
Legal culture as an integral part of the general culture of the people is based on its principles and is a reflection of the level of its development and the mentality of the people.
For a long time, the social sciences were dominated by the concept that man acts strictly in accordance with reason, rationally, in obedience to certain laws of history; subconscious, emotional elements in human behavior were not given much importance.
Primary attention was paid to the whole - social
structures, large groups, classes. The smallest element of this system, the atomic unit of society - the individual - was practically ignored. There were certain categories that could be operated on
To study the inner world of a person, such terms as “way of thinking”, “attitude”, the concepts of “class consciousness”, “national consciousness”, “worldview”, “socialist legal consciousness” were used. Marxist teaching did not recognize the existence of an independent, individual view of the world. The system of determinism that has developed in science is based on this concept: each person is determined in his behavior, in his psychological attitudes by one or another external factor - from technical and economic to social group. That is, the determination of human behavior is necessarily carried out through the social environment, group, immediate society, which informs the individual of the rules and guidelines for his behavior. This approach to the determination of human behavior significantly narrowed its horizons of knowledge of human thinking and man as a person, could not explain the features of the psychological development of the individual, his consciousness, which is determined not only by the social environment, but also by those characteristics that are transmitted to him at the genetic level.
The study of mentality requires unification and synthesis of all known approaches to the human problem. The most appropriate methodology here may be structural-functional analysis. Emphasizing the difference between mentality and thinking, mentality should be considered as an aggregate, a combination, a combination of various combining elements. Mentality as a unique social phenomenon, covering a way of thinking and behavior characteristic of a particular human individual and determined both by the innate qualities of a person and by individual social experience, where moral education and value orientations play a key role, is an important philosophical problem.
Legal mentality plays a regulatory role in lawmaking and law implementation, influences the behavior of individuals, national and other social groups, strata, and the entire population of the country. In its content, the term “legal mentality” reflects not only current state people in relation to law. From this we can assume that mentality is a general thing that is born from natural data and socially conditioned components and reveals a person’s idea of the world around him.
Legal consciousness is the subject’s perception of that part of reality that is associated with law. It should be noted here that people’s knowledge and ideas about law, judgments about it are not only a product of a person’s individual practice. They are absorbed by the individual from his social environment in the course of legal civilization.
The knowledge, intuitive legal sense, orientation, values and attitudes obtained in the course of legal socialization together form a legal mentality, a general mental legal toolkit, a legal “psychological equipment”, which gives people the opportunity to be aware of the natural and social environment and themselves. An objective study of the phenomenon of legal consciousness and legal culture requires consideration of historically determined motives of action, models of legal behavior, legal attitudes, which are determined both by material life and by the worldview, worldview, worldview, that is, legal mentality. The legal mentality is distinguished by its steadfastness and certain conservatism. In the life of legal culture, this feature plays a dual role: progressive and regressive. In the first case, the legal mentality is an indispensable guardian of normative orderliness. It is the conservatism of the legal mentality that allows us to preserve and increase all the most optimal things that were in previous national and world traditions of law. Thanks to the conservatism of the legal mentality of the Kazakh people, they have survived as a people.
Concerning negative aspects legal conservatism, it should be noted that it does not always develop legal values taking into account the existing new social realities. Thus, the positive potential of the socialist legal culture could not overcome the “negativity” it had, because the latter took too high roots in the consciousness of the individual. Hence the need for a radical breakdown of the socialist legal consciousness, replacing it with a more humane, democratic worldview.
The ontological and axiological status of the legal culture of society is largely rooted in the spirit of law, the ethnic identity of the deep layers of spiritually developed legal consciousness.
- Legal consciousness as an essential component of legal culture
Legal awareness is one of the most important components of legal culture. Depending on the level, nature, content, and orientation of legal consciousness, the intellectual and emotional content of legal culture, its value systems, orientations, and priorities are determined. At the same time, legal culture has a great impact on the state of legal consciousness, which is particularly manifested in the process of reflecting and understanding the values of the legal world.
As V. Ivanov rightly noted, legal consciousness is not only legal psychology and legal ideology. A person’s sense of justice is an act of conscience that checks the compliance of a person’s free will, his actions and thoughts with the moral law given by God. This act contains a lot: an assessment of the justice of actions and thoughts; it evokes fear and joy; creates shame and a state of discomfort; gives confidence and strength; inspiring and paralyzing.
A highly moral person can be completely law-abiding without knowing specific legislative acts, but for this it is necessary that the laws reflect the realities of life through the prism of justice, freedom, and humanism.
- Legal literacy and attitude to law
The theory of the rule of law is based on the recognition of the supremacy of law and its role as a regulator of social life. This role is much more significant and multifaceted than just respect for the law, as is evident in everyday social ideas. Whatever the behavior of people in relation to the law, the latter is a common point of reference for them. And not only because the law defines all kinds of situations and rules for regulating behavior within their framework for all subjects of legal relations, indicates what it allows or does not allow, and thus forms the general “rules of the game”, but also because more deep psychological level associates with a particular type of behavior its favorable and unfavorable consequences, and thereby “constructs” positive or negative models of behavior.
Let's consider people's attitude to law. Despite the ongoing reforms, the authority of the law is extremely low. There is a disdain for the law that has persisted since Soviet times, when it was considered not shameful to deceive the state, there was a huge army of so-called “nonsense”. Nowadays, this attitude is strengthened by the arbitrariness of local executive bodies - Akimov, as well as by the progress of privatization, the fruits of which are mainly enjoyed by those who had access to power or state property, and the lack of responsibility of the state itself, which does not pay pensions, social benefits and wages on time.
Many people believe that in certain life situations there is no shame in breaking the law. Moreover, there is an extremely negative attitude towards compliance with the law. It is no secret that today there is a widespread belief that an intelligent person will always find a way to circumvent the law if he is in the way; Many people believe that it is almost impossible to survive in modern conditions without breaking the law. There are widespread opinions in society that do not correspond to the prevailing needs of society, so there is no reason to follow it; laws have little meaning in modern society, where other, unwritten rules of behavior apply; Without violating the law, it is not possible to achieve the realization of one’s rights and legitimate interests.
Society has developed tolerance towards manifestations of corruption, in particular bribes. For example, it is on this basis that traffic police officers conduct extortions. Everyone, finding themselves in one or another traffic situation, without hesitation, pays off the official.
A person who has managed to “settle well in life” due to his proximity to power structures and the ability to manage public funds does not evoke condemnation in society, but, on the contrary, respect. The majority of the population believes that it is unprofitable to comply with the law, although many do not allow unconditional compliance with the law. In general, the majority of the population admits motivated non-compliance with the law, which indicates a high potential readiness to break the law.
The effectiveness of the state and a person’s faith in it are a kind of communicating vessels. Their content is based on mutual respect as a real, concrete value. The leading role in its formation belongs to the state. The more effective a state is, the more incentive it has to encourage honesty and integrity among officials.
The transition period the Republic of Kazakhstan is experiencing is truly a historical milestone in its development. Therefore, the enormous responsibility that the young sovereign state must bear is obvious. It is the public authority, which establishes or changes the rules of behavior for its citizens, that puts the latter in objectively tangible conditions of their dependence on the state, which is created and maintained by them. Trust in government must be based on accounting public opinion. It is necessary to conduct constant surveys and surveys of people in the region, village, city on the question of which government officials they consider an example of conscientiousness and responsibility. These opinions can become the basis for formal competitions for positions in the government system.
The theory of the rule of law is based on the recognition of the supremacy of law and its role as a regulator of social life. This role is much more multifaceted than the simple respect for the law present in social ideas. It means that whatever the behavior of people in relation to the law, the latter is a common point of reference, and not only in that the law determines for everyone - both the government and the population - situations and the rules for regulating them, and thus, forms the “rules of the game” that are common to everyone, but also because at a deeper, psychological level, the law associates favorable and unfavorable consequences with one or another type of behavior, indicates what it allows or does not allow, and thereby creates from these types of behavior positive or negative models.
The state of modern Kazakh legal consciousness raises the need for the adoption and implementation of measures aimed at increasing the general level of legal consciousness, overcoming the legal nihilism of citizens, forming a legal culture of society and the individual, so that respect for law and law becomes the personal conviction of every person.
CONCLUSION
XX century became an important step towards the development of world civilization, which introduced significant changes in all areas human life, and first of all, in such areas as science and technology. The widespread use of advances in science and technology can significantly improve the standard of living of the majority of the population. At the same time, the development of other natural sciences first gave rise to, and then cast doubt on, the idea of the omnipotence of scientific knowledge in solving human problems. Human civilization has found itself powerless in the face of many events that threaten its existence in the future.
The issues of forming a high legal culture of society directly depend on the implementation of the principles of the rule of law and the formation of civil society. Today it becomes clear that the foundation of the social system for society is value orientations that determine the motivation of their behavior. During the transition period from one type of sociality to another, the constitutive role of culture is clearly manifested. A new system of value orientations is emerging, including legal ones, the basis of which is private property.
Property becomes a natural inalienable human right. The market becomes the central institution of the social system, its main principles are individualism, freedom of contract, free competition and free entrepreneurship. The market system laid the foundations for the institutionalization of new forms of social relations. The sphere of private interests of labor and private rights is freed from political control. Accordingly, three relatively independent segments of society are being formed: the market, the state, and civil society, each of which has its own specific type of regulation and has a certain share of power.
Today, to improve legal culture, it is necessary to carry out comprehensive measures, including the development and approval of a state concept, as well as programs for the development of legal culture, and large-scale legal education. At the same time, it is necessary to fully stimulate the activities of both government bodies and various subjects of civil society, including educational national and international institutions. Particular attention should be paid to the formation of the legal worldview of society in the context of universal legal values and their connection with national culture.
It is necessary to create new creative groups consisting of leading scientists from different directions to develop a national idea, which should be based on the spiritual heritage and legal values of the people, developed over many centuries, including the customs and traditions of the Kazakh people.
Improving the legal culture of Kazakh society as a whole is impossible without organizing legal education at the public and private levels on the principle of combining disciplines in the educational process that not only provide knowledge of the “letter of the law”, but also instill respect for its spirit; without the development and implementation of training programs on the formation of legal culture and legal worldview for educational institutions at all levels.
LIST OF REFERENCES USED
- Sartaev S.S., Zhumabaev S.K. On reforming public life and legal reform in the Republic of Kazakhstan. Strategy of the Republic of Kazakhstan until 2030: problems of state and law. Almaty:// Ka Zak, university, 1999
- Aytimbet I.A., Mukhtarova A.K. Problems of forming the legal consciousness of schoolchildren during the transition from totalitarianism to the rule of law: Results of a sociological study in 2000. Almaty, 2001
- Alekseev S.S. Law on the threshold of the new millennium. Moscow: Statute, 2000
- Markaryan E.S. Culture as a system. Questions of Philosophy, 1984
- Suleimenov O.S. Folk culture is the chronicle of the world. Questions of Philosophy, 1988
- Nersenyants B. C . Law and law. Moscow, 1983 Nersenyants
- B. C
- Encyclopedia of aphorisms: Scatterings of thoughts. Moscow: AST, 2001
- Abulkhanova - Slavskaya K.A. Activity and personality psychology. Moscow: Science, 1960
- Absalyamova N. National idea: friendship, brotherhood, legal understanding. Kazakhstanskaya Pravda.2001, January 20
- Avdusin D.A. Archeology of the USSR: Textbook - Moscow: Higher School, 1977
- Markaryan E.S. Culture as a system. Questions of philosophy, 1984 Suleimenov O.S. Folk culture is the chronicle of the world. Questions of Philosophy, 1988
- Alekseev S.S. Theory of law. Moscow, 1996. Livshits R.Z. Modern theory rights, 1992
- Nersenyants B. C . Law and law. Moscow, 1983 0 Nersenyants B . C . History of political and legal doctrines. Moscow, 1983
- Arnold I. Limitations of the rule of law in German criminal procedural law. Constitutional Law: East European Review, 1999
- Encyclopedia of aphorisms: Scatterings of thoughts. Moscow: AST, 2001
- Dal V.I. Explanatory dictionary of the living Great Russian language. Moscow, 1990, volume 3
- Brovar B. JL Theory of scientific knowledge. Moscow, 1996
- Marchenko M. Problems of legal understanding and the main sources of Anglo-Saxon law. Scientific works "Adshet", 2000, No. 1
- Mukumbaeva G. Legal understanding at the personal level. Scientific works "Adshet", 2000, No. 1
- Nersenyants B. C . Philosophy of law. Moscow, 1997
Kaminskaya V.I., Ratinov A.R. Instructions to employees, 1956 3 Ivanov V. Faith - conscience - sense of justice - state. Law and
life, 1994, No. 6
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The legal culture of society needs systematic rational formation, stimulation, and positive social development. A system of measures aimed at the formation of political and legal ideas, norms, principles that represent the values of world and national legal culture acts as legal education. In other words, legal education is the formation of a legal culture among citizens and in society. This process is carried out by government bodies, officials, educational institutions, and society as a whole.
Legal education is a purposeful activity to transmit (transmit) legal culture, legal experience, legal ideals and mechanisms for resolving conflicts in society from one generation to another. Legal education has the goal of developing a person’s legal consciousness and the legal culture of society as a whole.
Usually they talk about legal education in a broad and narrow sense. In the first case, we are talking, rather, not about legal education, but about the legal socialization of a person, when he is “educated” by the environment as a whole, by all legal practice and the behavior of people, officials - representatives of the state apparatus in the legal sphere. At the same time, citizens, officials, government bodies carrying out legal activities (legal or unlawful) do not have a direct goal of exerting an educational influence on others. However, such an impact on others still occurs. As for legal education in the narrow sense, it is distinguished by its focus on improving the legal culture of an individual, a group of people and society as a whole.
The content of legal education is to familiarize people with knowledge about the state and law, legality, individual rights and freedoms, understanding the essence of legal teachings and doctrines, and developing in citizens a stable orientation toward law-abiding behavior. Of course, some legal values, having their basis and origin in moral norms, are acquired by the individual in the process of various social practices. However, the goal of legal education is “to create a special toolkit for conveying legal values to the mind and feelings of every person.”
Let us consider the main elements of the mechanism of legal education as an activity aimed at improving a person’s legal culture. First of all, these are specific ways of organizing the educational process, such as legal training, legal work in connection with certain constitutional events (referendums, elections, etc.), propaganda of law through the media, fiction.
Another “important element of the mechanism of legal education is the various methods of law educational work- techniques, ways of explaining political and legal ideas and principles in order to influence the consciousness and behavior of an individual in the interests of law and order.” These include a variety of methods of emotional and pedagogical influence on students: persuasion, warning, encouragement, coercion. These methods are often used in legal practice.
Methods of legal education include legal education. The process of disseminating legal knowledge serves to grow the general legal culture. Its main goal is “to develop respect for law and legality as a value system among broad sections of the Russian population,” mastering the basics of legal knowledge by the population, and understanding social and legal responsibility. Educational work raises the individual legal awareness of the individual to an understanding of the most general legal principles and requirements that meet the interests of the entire society and the state.” The formation of a positive attitude towards the law, law, knowledge by citizens of their rights and obligations to the state and society is an integral part of legal culture.
The system of legal education activities includes the work of special legal courses, schools, seminars, which are carried out by state and public bodies, both on a commercial and budgetary basis. The task of legal education is to familiarize the population with the models and ideals, legal experience and traditions of those countries where the level of legal protection, and, consequently, the level of legal culture, is higher than in Russia. Unfortunately, at present, the value, emotional impact of legal education is very much limited by real legal practice, since it is impossible to instill in a person respect for those values that are absent in the consciousness and activities of people in a given society, and the experience of other countries cannot always be applied in Russia. Empty declarations and demagogic statements (both by political leaders before the population, and by ordinary educators and teachers before children and youth) have a detrimental effect on the process of forming the legal culture of society. In addition, not everyone is suitable for the role of a teacher. On a public scale, he can become an outstanding person who will “open” people’s eyes to the true state of affairs in the field of legal culture of society.
The media play a major role in legal education. Forms of legal educational work through the media include conversations on legal topics, discussions on topical issues political and legal relations, thematic programs “Man and the Law”, comments on new legislation by specialists, etc. Practice has developed such forms of mass legal work as lecture propaganda, various lectures on legal topics, weeks, decades, months of legal knowledge, scientific and practical conferences, and gatherings. However, due to the breakdown of public consciousness and the reorientation of human values that has occurred in our country over the past decade, their share has decreased. This form of work is not popular in society and is carried out only during elections or other constitutionally necessary events.
Particularly difficult is the legal education of persons prone to committing antisocial acts. In these cases, the introduction of new beliefs and views into a person’s consciousness must be combined with his rejection of already established positions and attitudes, which together form the so-called negative legal culture. It is possible that these persons may try to use knowledge of the laws to the detriment of society, thereby the state will embodied in them. Therefore, the emphasis in education, and in essence, re-education, should be placed on their awareness of the moral principles of society, on understanding the role and significance of sanctions of legal norms as a morally justifiable means of combating crime. Here it is especially clearly seen that legal education is inseparable from a complex of other educational measures. This is understandable, since, as we know, a person is not educated in parts (first in the field of morality, then in law, etc.), he is formed due to the combined influence of a variety of factors.
A serious drawback of the current practice of educational work in the legal field is the underestimation of organizational forms designed for a youth audience: school legal Olympiads, debates on topics of law and morality. At the new stage of development of the state structure, it is important to preserve this experience of working with youth and stimulate its development on a new political and legal foundation. The increase in crime and the decline in social security require intensified work to clarify individual rights, “opportunities (much increased) for judicial appeal of illegal and unreasonable actions, compensation for damage, and the use of certain civil, political, and property rights.”
An important role in the formation of the legal culture of society is played by such media as newspaper and magazine articles, theatrical performances, cinema and television. However, most journalistic publications and film scripts lack depth and comprehensiveness when studying the problem of cultivating a sense of respect for the rights and freedoms of people, and explaining new legal types of human socialization. The laws of the genre, characteristic of the media, require sensationalism in the selection of material. “This leads to a certain shift in the angle the journalist views the event to a “bloody showdown”, a description of the pathology of the criminal, an exaggeration of the sophistication or cruelty of the crime committed.” What kind of legal culture of society can we talk about when newspapers and magazines are replete with scenes of criminal life, on television screens there is robbery and murder against the backdrop of the sweet, carefree life of rich people. Recently, there has been a tendency to accept the negative experience of foreign countries in legal education through films and magazines. In addition to the development of unhealthy tendencies and the imitation of criminal elements among young people, “society turned out to be deprived objective picture, reflecting not only the crime and its genesis, but also all the stages of law enforcement activity following the crime.”
Legal culture presupposes the ability to speak competently and legally soundly. Disclosure of legal terminology, the language of legal acts, interpretation and explanation of the content of laws are an integral part of the legal education of citizens. Lawyers, in turn, are required to be able to correctly, at a professional level, compose texts of legal acts, and use words that are correct in the ethical sense in their speech. They are not allowed to express themselves in the language of journalism, which often introduces elements of the so-called “slang language” into the popular consciousness, such as “six”, “leader”, “showdown”, “raid”, while creating an aura of foul language. “This kind of “practice” leads to the moral and legal destruction of the individual, the cultural degradation of the individual.”
Legal education is closely related to legal training: education cannot occur without training, and training, one way or another, has an educational effect. The distinction here can be made, and very conditionally, in the sphere of influence: education influences mainly the emotional-volitional, value-based, worldview side of consciousness, and training affects the cognitive-rational side, with the aim of informative and educational influence on a person. The value-based, emotional-volitional influence, in turn, is very much limited by real legal, new practice, since it is impossible to instill in a person respect for those values that are absent in the public consciousness and activities of people, but are proclaimed in words, in empty declarations and demagogic statements (as political leaders in front of the population, and simple educators and teachers in front of children and youth).
Values and ideals “grow” spontaneously, are formed by life itself, by all surrounding circumstances, and the role of the subjective factor, purposeful activity here, although important, is not the leading one, much less the only necessary and sufficient one. And not everyone is suited to be a teacher. On a public scale, such an educator can be any outstanding person (A.D. Sakharov, A.F. Koni), who will open people’s eyes to the true state of affairs in the field of protecting human rights and opposing state arbitrariness.
For this reason, the main emphasis in improving the legal culture of society should be on legal education and informing the population about existing legal regulations. It is very important to familiarize the population with the models and ideals, legal experience and traditions of those countries where the level of legal protection of the individual, and, consequently, the level of legal culture is higher than in Russia. It is all the more important to teach this to future professional lawyers, so that they see the main goal of their activities in protecting human rights and freedoms from the arbitrariness of society and the state, i.e. in protecting the weak from the strong, which is one of the central postulates of global, universal morality, morality and culture as a whole.
LEGAL ISSUES
UDC 34:372.8 BBK 67.05 G 12
I.G. Gavrilova
The role of legal education in the formation of a law-abiding personality
Annotation:
In the article, the author defines the goals and specific features of legal education, in the context of the formation of a law-abiding position of an individual in everyday legal relations, understanding of personal legal and moral responsibilities. Also, the article examines individual deviantogenic personality traits, the dynamics of the escalation of legal nihilism among young people, the main reasons and conditions that determined deviations from a socially approved model of behavior.
Internalization, legal education, legal nihilism, deviant behavior, delinquency, legal
Analyzing the effectiveness and content of the process of legal education of youth, it should be noted that the correct definition of its goals and objectives is of paramount importance. It is undeniable that education is always associated with a purposeful, organized influence on the entire person, and legal education should be understood in the same meaning. It represents a consistent and systematic educational impact on young people with the aim of forming and progressively developing their legal culture.
The goals and specific features of legal education are, first of all, related to the formation of a law-abiding position in everyday legal relations, with an understanding of personal legal and moral responsibilities, personal responsibility for certain actions, that is, the education of a law-abiding individual.
Based on the above goals and specifics of legal education, problem solver formation of a law-abiding personality, the following can be proposed as its practical tasks:
Organization of a comprehensive propaganda system for the purpose of legal awareness of young people;
Forming a respectful attitude of young people towards legal norms as social values, an appropriate product of civilization;
Formation of a strong conviction in the importance of laws and forms of their application;
Fostering awareness of personal responsibility for one’s behavior;
Education and development in worldview young man stereotypes of lawful behavior;
Internalization of the basic principles and features of the system of legal relations in society;
Formation of a strong life position that determines the desire to actively participate in the protection of law and order;
Cultivating among young people the ideas of respect for the law, opposition to legal nihilism, and illegal behavior.
The state of law and order and security of citizens, the globalization of processes that determine the deviant behavior of young people, the scale of marginal phenomena in society, all of these are factors that explain the relevance of the fact that legal education in modern Russia should rightfully claim the role of one of the leading sections in the general system of education of the entire population , all its layers, social and professional groups. In turn, the formation of the basic elements of the legal culture of citizens occurs in all social systems and structures, most often through the mechanism of learning - their unconscious formation among citizens.1
It should be noted that in the process of forming a law-abiding personality, the main pedagogical systems are of greatest importance, in which the influence of elements of legal culture is conscious, purposeful and thoughtful, taking the form of legal education for all. This statement is shared by many researchers. So, for example, SB. Kara writes: “The most important place in legal education is occupied by the study of the fundamentals of law and legal behavior in society, at work, in civil and economic matters. He has great educational potential.”2
The main link in the education, development and formation of the worldview of the younger generation and, in particular, its legal education is educational institutions. In them, young people must master the fundamentals of the political system, the rights of a citizen and his responsibilities, the role of legislation and law, its basic principles. Without strengthening the role of the education system in the legal and moral education of young people, overcoming legal cultural crises is impossible.
Giving educational institutions a leading role in the process of educational influence on the individual can well be considered in historical retrospect. At the beginning of the last century, a well-known researcher of problems in the education of VB. Zenkovsky noted that in the face of the facts that psychology and especially psychopathology have accumulated, it is absolutely clear that the tasks of education are not only more complex and difficult, but also more important than the tasks of teaching. Criminological experience,
According to the author, it is increasingly abundant and increasingly terrible, revealing in children entire spheres of movements that require the educational influence of elders, including within the walls of the school.3 The accumulation of legal knowledge of students and the development of corresponding legal views should be carried out in the classroom when studying various academic disciplines. The possibilities of regular classes (in schools, technical schools, universities) in disciplines that are not legal - history, literature, social science, etc. - are enormous. There are many historical periods known to young people that make it possible to convincingly show the role of law in changing and improving the social situation in society and connect them with modern legal and cultural issues.
At the same time, a number of researchers in this area criticize the activities of educational institutions in legal education. So, L.N. Nikolaeva writes: “There is an obvious gap between the new democratic legislation and the proper level of legal culture of young people and all citizens. Law has not been established as an independent school subject in the basic curriculum; there is no system for training and retraining teachers in legal disciplines; teaching law is not sufficiently connected with legal education. Even in federal legal documents (decrees, plans, directives and other documents of the government and the Ministry of Education) on the modernization of education until 2010, improving the education of schoolchildren and students, there are almost no issues of legal culture and legal education
attention is paid.
Thus, it should be stated that the interests of educating young people determine the need to create a system of stage-by-stage legal education, developing a clear, comprehensive program in accordance with the level of personal development of young people, their legal awareness and age characteristics.
Analyzing the features of legal education, it should be noted that it is part of the general system of educating the younger generation and preserves its general principles. That is, legal education, first of all, is based on universal moral positions, a humanistic approach to relationships with individuals, and respect for their rights to self-realization. At the same time, the principle of integrity and comprehensiveness of the educational process involves the use of means and methods of legal educational influence in order to ensure an interconnected and mutually reinforcing effect on the main spheres of the human psyche - on consciousness, feelings and will. This principle is based on the most important position of pedagogy that a person is not educated in parts,” education is not complete
leaves blank spots.5 This, in turn, gives grounds to assert that one of the most important aspects is the need for systematic, consistent and continuous educational influence on young people.
It should be noted that the social environment plays a significant role in the legal education of the population. According to the peculiarities of their nature, all legal educational factors of the social environment can be divided into two groups:
Actually pedagogical - features of the functioning of various pedagogical systems;
Pedagogically significant - not being pedagogical in nature, they nevertheless affect the legal education of the entire population.
Considering the problem of educating a law-abiding individual through the prism of legal culture, we would like to formulate the main components of this theoretical concept.
1) Young people are active by nature, prone to more intensively appropriating certain cultural stereotypes of a personal behavioral model, and these objective qualities must be fully taken into account and used in legal educational activities to form a law-abiding personality.
2) The main goal of the legal education process is to promote certain positive changes in the cultural worldview and behavior of representatives of the younger generation with an existing understanding of the world order, views, and behavioral stereotypes.
3) Legal education should be a set of activities, necessarily including the study individual characteristics personality, the degree of pedagogical neglect, the level of legal nihilism, the main reasons and conditions that determined deviations from the socially approved model of behavior. Personalized approach to in this case largely determines both the content and organization of the entire process
4) Legal education as an element of an integral system of personality formation, which most closely interacts with negative manifestations in society, cannot be based only on verbal methods. The young person's practical encounters with law enforcement can play an important role. Social institutions involved in organizing legal education should actively seek forms of youth participation in practical activities to organize law and order and legal education of the population.
Characterizing the problems of legal education in modern Russia, it should be noted that today's social conditions and the level of legal culture of young people require the creation of additional elements of the legal education system that correspond to the current development of science and practice, increasing the efficiency of higher legal education, and developing a system of public associations participating in legal education. 6
Notes:
1 See Legal pedagogy. Ed. Kikotya V.Ya., Stolyaren-
2 Kara SB. Legal training and legal propaganda as a form
legal education // Materials of the international scientific and practical conference. April 24-25, 2003 - Bryansk, 2003. - P. 114-115.
3 Zenkovsky VB. Educational work at school. - M.: Pro-
glow. 1993. - P. 168.
4 Nikolaeva L. Some problems of formation of legal
culture of Russian society // Criminological and psychological-pedagogical problems of legal education: Materials of the international scientific conference on April 24-25, 2003 - P. 289.
5 See Legal pedagogy. Ed. Kikotya V.Ya., Stolyaren-
6 Legal culture at the turn of the century // State and law.
The educational function of law, through introducing people to knowledge about the state and law, legality, individual rights and freedoms, to understanding the essence of legal teachings, doctrines, and developing a stable orientation towards law-abiding behavior, increases their legal culture. Another related concept, and perhaps a form of interaction between this function of law and legal culture, is legal education (legal education, legal training). Legal education, first of all, occurs through the organization of the educational process in the form of legal education, propaganda of law through mass media and fiction. The system of legal education activities includes special legal courses, schools, and seminars. The task of legal education is to familiarize the population with the models and ideals, legal experience and traditions of those countries where the level of legal protection, and therefore the level of legal culture, is higher than in Russia.
There are also a variety of methods of emotional and pedagogical influence on students: persuasion, warning, encouragement, coercion. These methods are often used in legal practice.
Legal education is the process of disseminating legal knowledge, which serves the growth of a general legal culture. Its main goal is “to develop respect for law and legality as a value system for broad sections of the Russian population,” to teach the population the basics of legal knowledge, and to understand social and legal responsibility. Educational work raises the individual legal awareness of the individual to an understanding of the most general legal principles and requirements that meet the interests of the entire society and the state. Let us recall that the objectives of the educational function of law are the formation of a positive attitude towards the law, law, knowledge by citizens of their rights and obligations to the state and society, which is what legal culture strives for. We can conclude that the educational function of law contributes to the formation of a legal culture, headed by law.
The media play a major role in the concepts under consideration. Forms of legal educational work through the media include conversations on legal topics, discussions on current issues of political and legal relations, thematic programs, comments on new legislation by specialists. Practice has developed such forms of mass legal work as lecture propaganda, various lectures on legal topics, weeks, decades, months of legal knowledge, scientific and practical conferences, and gatherings. However, due to the breakdown of public consciousness and the reorientation of human values that has occurred in our country over the past decade, their share has decreased.
An important role in the formation of the legal culture of society and the implementation of the educational function of law is played by such media as newspaper and magazine articles, theatrical productions, cinema and television. However, most journalistic publications and film scripts lack depth and comprehensiveness when studying the problem of cultivating a sense of respect for the rights and freedoms of people, and explaining new legal types of human socialization. Recently, there has been a tendency to accept the negative experience of foreign countries in legal education through films and magazines. In addition to the development of unhealthy tendencies and the imitation of criminal elements among young people, society turned out to be deprived of an objective picture that reflects not only the crime and its genesis, but also all the stages of law enforcement activity that follow the crime.
Law, through the educational function of forming a legal culture, presupposes the ability to speak competently and legally soundly. Disclosure of legal terminology, the language of legal acts, interpretation and explanation of the content of laws are also components of the legal education of citizens. Lawyers, in turn, are required to be able to correctly, at a professional level, compose texts of legal acts, and use words that are correct in the ethical sense in speech. They are not allowed to express themselves in the language of journalism, which often introduces elements of the so-called slang language into the popular consciousness, thereby creating an aura of foul language. “This kind of “practice” leads to the moral and legal destruction of the individual, to his cultural degradation.”
All of the above elements necessary for the useful existence of education can be combined under one term - legal communications. Communication is the main way of forming legal psychology; through it the formation of consciousness occurs, social experience accumulates, communication has a significant impact on legal ideology and legal psychology of the individual and society as a whole. It is also important that legal ideology acts as a theoretically substantiated expression in the legal categories of legality, justice, rights and obligations, freedom, equality of social subjects in various manifestations of legal life. At the level of legal ideology, moral guidelines are developed: respect for rights and observance of duties by all citizens of the state. A related category of legal ideology is legal psychology (emotions, feelings, experiences, moods in relation to the legal environment). It should be noted that the formation of legal psychology is influenced not only by general social, but also by specific personal conditions. Thus, healthy legal psychology and legal ideology are also the goals of the educational function of law and legal culture in real life, since they provide awareness of the need for appropriate lawful behavior.
The relevance of the study of the problem of legal education is due to two factors: first of all, the development and implementation of new fundamentals of Russian legislation, as well as Russia’s accession to international documents on the rights of children and youth and increasing the level of legal culture of the population.
Nowadays, the importance of legal culture in the conditions of the formation of a truly democratic state governed by the rule of law is increasing.
Law plays a special role in the process of formation of the rule of law and civil society. The essence of the problem is that it is necessary to find the optimal combination of state intervention and freedom of discretion of society in all spheres of people's lives. At the present stage, constructive interaction between society and the state is necessary, including on issues of education. The only instrument to ensure the participation of society in public affairs and the guarantor of its interests is the law.
But just having good laws is not enough. An atmosphere of unconditional respect for the law must be created throughout society. Otherwise, the law guaranteeing the most advanced democratic innovations will be a fiction, an empty phrase. That is, it is necessary to have a high legal consciousness of the individual and society, a high legal culture.
The leading principles in the implementation of the legal education system are the principle of humanism and the principle of legality.
The principle of humanism presupposes the recognition of a person as the highest value, the protection of his dignity and civil rights, the creation of conditions for the free and comprehensive manifestation of an individual’s abilities.
Principle of legality presupposes strict implementation of laws and legal acts based on them by all government bodies, officials, public organizations and citizens.
The purpose of legal education is to serve the implementation of state policy, primarily on the social protection of children and youth, but it can fulfill this role only subject to the strictest compliance with all legal norms.
Legal education: concept, forms and goals
Who among us would not like to live in a legal state, to feel that you are protected at home, on the street, at work? Russia is moving along the path of a radical renewal of the legal system. But more than half a century ago, the outstanding Russian thinker, lawyer and philosopher I. A. Ilyin said the following words: “State and political renewal can only come from the depths of legal consciousness and the human heart.” The truth of these words is confirmed daily by our lives. That is why the legal education of the individual is one of the key problems facing our state. This direction can be called global due to its influence on all spheres of public life.
A system of measures aimed at integrating political and legal ideas, norms, and principles representing the values of world and national legal culture into people’s consciousness acts as legal education.
Legal education- purposeful activities of the state, public organizations, and individual citizens to transfer legal experience; systematic influence on human consciousness and behavior in order to form certain positive ideas, views, value orientations, attitudes that ensure compliance, execution and use of legal norms.
Legal education is a complex and multifaceted system of activities, in which a special role belongs to the educational system. Exactly at adolescence When a person’s personal attitudes are formed, it is necessary to lay the foundations for the formation of a person who respects the law. Of course, many legal values, having their basis and origin in moral norms, are acquired by the individual in the process of various social practices, through other non-legal forms and channels of public consciousness. However, legal education involves the creation of special tools to convey legal values to the mind and feelings of every person, turning them into personal beliefs and an internal guideline for behavior.
Legal education is the main means of forming and raising the level of legal awareness and legal culture of citizens, an instrument of spiritual education of the individual in the conditions of building a rule of law state in Russia.
Legal education is a complex and multifaceted activity, manifested in several forms. Among them:
- " propaganda of law by the media(magazines, radio, television, Internet). This form is characterized by mass, widest audience coverage, the use of various headings, thematic conversations, reports, etc.;
- " publication of literature on legal issues(popular brochures, comments on laws and legal practice, etc.);
- " oral legal propaganda- lectures, conversations, consultations, question and answer evenings, lecture series, lecture halls, etc. The audience coverage here is smaller, but there are opportunities to directly contact listeners, immediately get an answer to a question of interest, exchange opinions and enter into a discussion;
- " legal education of citizens- study of legislation in secondary schools, colleges, technical schools and universities, in public universities of legal knowledge. The positive features of this form are the constancy of the audience, the presence of programs, homework, seminars, exams, consolidation of an entire, interconnected system of knowledge;
- " professional legal education training specialists in the field of law (law universities, faculties, special courses advanced training, etc.);
- " clear legal information(stands of photographs of offenders, wall newspapers, combat leaflets, etc.);
- " influence legal practice- legislative activity of the state, the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, the work of courts and other law enforcement agencies;
- " influence works of literature and art dedicated to legal issues - films, theatrical productions, novels and stories by Russian and foreign writers (works by F. Dostoevsky, L. Tolstoy, T. Dreiser, modern Russian authors).
Legal education is a system of measures aimed at introducing democratic legal and moral values, principles of law, and strong beliefs in the necessity and fairness of norms into the consciousness of individuals. The goals of legal education are:
- "achieving strong knowledge of people about legislation, legality, rights and responsibilities of the individual, first of all, those norms that directly concern a person. The rule has been known since ancient times that ignorance of the law or an incorrect, distorted understanding of it, diverging from the will of the legislator, does not exempt from liability for its violation;
- "increasing the authority of the law as an immutable social value, respect for it, a decisive fight against legal nihilism;
- "creating among citizens a stable orientation towards lawful behavior, the formation of attitudes and habits of law-abiding, skills and ability to participate in justice and other forms of legal activity, as well as the creation of an atmosphere of protest and intolerance towards all cases of its violation, the inevitability of responsibility.
In other words, the content of legal education is understood as part of social experience in the field of legal culture and its following components are distinguished: legal literacy, legal thinking and legal skill.
Legal literacy: familiarity with the essence of concepts (law, constitution, legislation, normative act, rule of law, law); legislative documents on social protection of children at the international, federal and regional levels. The development of legal literacy is carried out in practical classes, in which schoolchildren and students conduct a comparative analysis of documents and draw conclusions about the similarities and differences of conceptual frameworks.
Legal thinking and skill are based on legal knowledge and represent the ability to evaluate the plans, actions, and behavior of people from the point of view of legal norms. To develop legal thinking, an analysis of pedagogical and psychological situations that may occur in real life is provided. In the course of solving these situations (tasks), young people learn to incorporate legal knowledge, project their actions into reality, realize the value of the individual, his rights, freedoms and responsibilities to himself, society and the state, understand the natural freedom of man and the freedom of man in society.
"...the natural freedom of man is not to depend on any supreme power on Earth and not to be subject to the will or legislative power of man, but to obey only the laws of nature. The freedom of man in society does not consist in not being subject to any other legislative power, except that which is established with the consent of society..."
(John Locke, British philosopher (1632 - 1704), from On Civil Government (1690)). The content, subjective and objective composition of legal education depend on what goals are set for the educational process. Thus, if the purpose of education is to disseminate legal knowledge, then it comes down to legal education. If it is aimed at the formation of legal beliefs, a sense of respect for the rules of law, then the process of legal education is limited to a set of such means and methods, the impact of which is aimed mainly at the formation of the legal consciousness of the individual. The preventive goal of legal education artificially narrows the range of objects and subjects of the system and limits the use of various means and methods of influence. And only by setting before legal education a comprehensive goal of forming a legal culture of an individual, is it possible to bring the legal educational process from the dissemination of legal information through the stage of forming value orientations and skills of lawful behavior to the involvement of the individual in all spheres of state and public life regulated by law, i.e. before the formation of social and legal activity.Legal education is designed to eradicate legal nihilism and legal idealism, existing stereotypes and increase the level of legal culture. Because only in this case is it possible to create a rule-of-law state and a civil society, in conditions in which the full implementation of all individual rights and freedoms is real.
Main elements of the mechanism of legal education
Main elements of the mechanism of legal education- these are ways of organizing the educational process. In modern conditions, a wide variety of forms of legal work with the population are used: legal education, propaganda of law through the media, legal educational work in connection with certain constitutional events (referendums, elections, etc.).Today, a system of legal education has emerged, which includes not only the activities of higher legal educational institutions, teaching the fundamentals of state and law in secondary education institutions, and legal disciplines in non-legal higher educational institutions.
The system of legal education activities includes the work of special legal seminars, schools, courses, which are organized by state and public bodies, both on a commercial and budgetary basis. Forms of educational work through the media include conversations on legal topics, round tables of legal experts, discussions on current issues of political and legal relations, thematic television programs, comments on new legislation by specialists, etc.
Unfortunately, at present, the proportion of mass legal educational work has decreased significantly. This work is carried out essentially only in connection with periodic election or other constitutionally necessary events. Meanwhile, practice has developed and successfully used such forms of mass legal work as lecture propaganda, various lectures on legal topics, weeks, decades, months of legal knowledge, scientific and practical conferences, gatherings, etc.
A serious drawback of the current practice of educational work in the legal field is the underestimation of organizational forms designed for a youth audience: school legal Olympiads, debates on topics of law, morality, “young lawyer” circles, etc.
New stage the development of domestic statehood, changes in forms of ownership and methods of economic regulation dictate the need to re-evaluate many traditional forms of legal education. However, it is important to preserve proven experience in this area and stimulate its development on a new economic, political and legal foundation.
In the context of an unprecedented increase in crime and a decrease in the social security of citizens, it is more important than ever to clarify the rights and opportunities of citizens (which have increased significantly) to judicially appeal illegal and unjustified actions, compensate for damage, and enjoy certain civil, political, and property rights.
Here the living word, newspaper and magazine articles, films, visual forms aimed at instilling a sense of respect for the rights and freedoms of people, explaining the new economic opportunities of citizens, new legal types of human socialization in a market economy will never lose their meaning.
The second important element of the mechanism of legal education is a variety of methods of legal educational work - techniques, ways of explaining political and legal ideas and principles in order to influence the consciousness and behavior of an individual in the interests of law and order. Methods of legal education include specific and very diverse methods of pedagogical, emotional, logical and epistemological influence on students. These techniques are usually taught by specially trained methodologists-referents in legal propaganda and legal education.
An important aspect of legal education is legal education. Legal education, i.e. the process of disseminating legal knowledge serves to increase the general legal culture and education of the population. The main goal of legal education as a method of legal propaganda is to cultivate respect for law and legality as a value system for broad sections of the Russian population.
Thus, we can talk about the significant role of educational institutions at all levels in legal education, both in terms of opportunities and responsibilities. In this regard, when modernizing the educational system at any level, it is necessary to pay due attention to the legal component of educating a full-fledged personality.
Legal culture
Legal culture- this is the totality of material and spiritual values created by people over the centuries, the level of historical development achieved by humanity, the degree of civilization of society, intellectual, spiritual development, humanistic worldview. These are the achievements of material production, science, art, ideological and moral values.Legal culture is an indispensable component of universal human culture. A truly cultural society is one where a comprehensive and consistent system of legislation has been developed and operates, reflecting universal spiritual values, where individual rights are ensured and protected, a regime of legality and law-abiding prevails, where legal monuments are preserved as immutable cultural values.
Legal culture, reflecting the level of legal civilization of society and including the progressive achievements of foreign legal systems, unites everything that has been created by humanity in the legal sphere - law, legal science, legal consciousness, the practice of lawmaking and judicial activity, legal worldview, national roots, historical memory , legal customs and traditions. This is the internal state of its legal life, determined by the social, economic and spiritual structure of society.
Legal culture presupposes sufficient knowledge by officials and citizens of legal norms, their legal literacy, ability, and skills to use laws in practical life, a high degree of respect for the authority of law, its assessment as a necessary social value for the normal functioning of a civilized community of people, an atmosphere of law-abiding personality, stable habits, an internal need to comply with the law and social and legal activity.
A necessary element of legal culture is also the presence in the country of a detailed legislation covering all main spheres of relations, gap-free, internally consistent and technically advanced legislation, consistently reflecting the ideals of democracy, freedom and justice, a high level of its codification, orderliness and information security.
The legal culture also includes a high level of law-making activity in the country, timely and high-quality consideration in legislation of new trends and needs for the development of society, the democratic foundations for the preparation and adoption of new regulatory decisions, and the active use of rules of legislative technology developed by world practice. No less important are the effectiveness of the law enforcement work of the administrative and law enforcement apparatus, the authority of the courts and other bodies involved in the fight against crime, and their ability, together with the public, to overcome this social evil.
The level of legal culture is also manifested in the degree of development of legal science in the country and the effectiveness of legal education. Caring for historical legal monuments (in our country this is, for example, the Russian Truth, the Code of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, the Code of Laws of Tsarist Russia, etc.), their protection, preservation, scientific study are also necessary elements of legal culture.
The actual level of legal culture in each society and at different stages of its development is not the same, which depends on many different factors. This is the level of development of the country’s economy and the well-being of its citizens, national, religious and other characteristics, the political system and the ability of the authorities to establish and protect legal institutions, resist arbitrariness, suppress offenses, the degree of development of legal science and education, etc. In the modern Russian state, such a level both in relation to individual citizens and to the entire society as a whole, unfortunately, is still quite low, and much needs to be done to overcome legal nihilism, increase the authority and effectiveness of legislation, its ability to be an effective tool for creating a rule-of-law state in our country, embodying legal and cultural values of world civilization.
Legal nihilism and cynicism of youth
The legal culture of a society presupposes a certain level of knowledge by the population as a whole and individual citizens of the current legislation, their law-abiding behavior in the form of compliance and execution of the law.The systemic crisis of Russian society has affected the legal and political consciousness of Russians. There is a transformation of people's consciousness, their beliefs, values, and attitudes change.
It is important to note that the effectiveness of political legal consciousness depends, first of all, on the specific historical situation. A democratic legal system for today's Russia is an ideal. With a low level of legal consciousness and legal nihilism of citizens, even the most daring reforms, even the most modern legislation, can expect failure.
The spread of such phenomena among young people is of particular concern. In order to improve legal knowledge, today many schools have specialized legal classes. There are a huge number of law schools in the country. In addition, the media are actively involved in legal education. There are many public organizations involved in providing legal services to the population and legal education.
The active participation of young people in the political life of society contributes to raising the level of legal culture. Since law is an effective and flexible policy instrument. And as an expression of the state will, based on the coercive power of the state, law always has political content and acts as one of the forms of politics. At the same time, legal and political consciousness closely interact.
However, despite this, the level of legal awareness and, in general, the legal culture of young people remains quite low. It is determined, first of all, by the economic crisis in which our country is located. The alienation of people living in poverty is one of the most important factors in the development of legal nihilism.
Conducted sociological research in the field of legal culture of current schoolchildren and first- and third-year students allows, along with positive conclusions, to draw a conclusion about the fairly frequent manifestation of legal anti-culture. The most obvious of them: legal illiteracy, legal nihilism and legal cynicism.
Legal illiteracy is expressed in ignorance (or very poor knowledge) of the law, although it may well be combined with a fairly high level moral development. Typical statements for this category of schoolchildren: “Why do decent, honest people know the laws? They already behave well.”
Legal nihilism is expressed in disbelief in the regulatory power of law, disappointment in its social role. Typical saying here. “Laws are written for honest people, and those who “do” business and politics calmly bypass them, and there is no force capable of forcing them to follow legal norms.”
Legal cynicism- the most dangerous manifestation of anticulture. Unfortunately, in a school environment, especially among high school students, you can hear the phrase: “There is no law that cannot be crushed under oneself: it all depends on the price that has to be paid for it.”
Therefore, the main task facing modern schools and universities is to help overcome such attitudes and form a high level of legal culture among young people.
Thus, at present, the most pressing problem for Russian society is the legal education of the population (especially young people), the implementation of the provisions of the Constitution, and the adoption of effective measures for its strict observance by all government bodies, officials and citizens. Legal nihilism still represents the main difficulty in reforming Russian reality. The state of affairs with respect to the constitutional rights and freedoms of Russians, which, in accordance with Art. 18 of the Constitution are directly applicable. Many of these rights are not yet supported by real state guarantees, and, first of all, judicial protection, and responsibility for their violations.
And, nevertheless, awareness of the importance and value of the individual, his rights and freedoms in modern reality is a huge step for Russia on the path to a democratic state. It is legal education, as a system of measures aimed at introducing into the consciousness of individuals democratic legal and moral values, principles of law, strong beliefs in the necessity and fairness of norms, that contributes to the formation of a democratic state.
Legal education is the main means of forming and raising the level of legal consciousness and legal culture of citizens, an instrument of spiritual education of the individual in the conditions of building a rule of law state in Russia.
