Sergey Muromtsev: The Founder of Russian Sociological Jurisprudence

Abstract

The chapter considers the theory of law by Sergey Muromtsev—acknowledged in the Russian literature as the first scholar to attempt to develop a sociological approach to law. The core of his understanding of law includes the claim that legal events are a type of social phenomena; therefore, law has to be examined in a similar manner to other social phenomena. Furthermore, the Russian theorist of law proposed distinguishing between legal relations as protected relations and juridical relations as protective relations. In his view, it is the sum of juridical relations which constitutes the law. In this chapter, special attention was paid to the idea of the role of the judge in Muromtsev’s theory. He puts forward an original proposal that the role of judges should not only involve uncovering the will of the legislator but also “thinking over what has not been thought over by the legislator”.