Why there are many mistakes in continental (including Russian) legislation

The origin of mistakes
Proof of the inevitability of mistakes in legislation
Why there are many mistakes in continental (including Russian) legislation

Economic theory teaches us that the role of the basis is primary, and the role of the superstructure secondary. Transferring this teaching to the field of civil law, one can confirm that industrial strengths and industrial relations (basis) form the standard behaviour of a subject in society, but the government, recognising this said norm, translates it into a legal statute (superstructure).

With the development of industrial relations (basis), old norms of behaviour are dying out and changing shape, new ones are arising, which creates preconditions for the timely correction of legal superstructure — legislation.

Such correcting is carried out much more simply in Anglo-American law, than in continental law (including Russian law).

In the Anglo-American system it is recognised that at the beginning a norm is formed by life itself, and then regulated by law. The principle «Norm is primary, law is secondary» is realised by the principle «the law of justice is higher than general law».

In Russia, like in the rest of continental Europe, German normative theory has been put into practice using the principle «law above all». When this happened, nobody seemed to notice that the legal superstructure (legislation) sometimes does not relate to the altered basis and sometimes laws simply impede the development of normal economic relations.

In the USA and Great Britain, a correct and timely decision on a concrete case may be made by courts, based on the principle «the law of justice is higher than general law». In Russia, however, a long procedure is necessary in order to change or make an addition to a law, which subjectively guarantees that mistakes in legislation have a longer «shelf-life».

As long as economic relations in Russia depend on a legal standard and not the other way round, we are doomed to be lead by legislation which contains a large number of mistakes, wasting our strengths not on fruitful activity, but on surmounting barriers standing in the way of market relations.