Postmodernity in Russian Private Law: Interaction of Legal and Judicial Doctrine

Abstract

The presented paper aims at revealing the essence of legal and judicial doctrine in Russian private law. The paper criticizes the position that the legal doctrine is an authoritative opinion of scientists expressed in the form of principles, theories, and concepts. This approach to legal doctrine is amorphous. Legal doctrine is a unified concept based on specific methodological foundations and developing conclusions that are in systemic unity. The legal doctrine toolkit is the alpha and omega of law. An interdisciplinary approach to the study of legal phenomena should be based on the categorical apparatus of legal doctrine, on the general doctrine of the essence and purpose of law. The result of an interdisciplinary study should be a rethinking and filling with new content of the tools already developed by the legal doctrine. The work scrutinizes the functions of legal doctrine: description of existing law (de lege lata); development of proposals for its improvement (de lege ferenda); justification and legitimization of novels. The paper concludes that the modern civil doctrine can be revealed through the postmodern concept of the rhizome, since the doctrine is becoming more international, interdisciplinary and creative. The author investigates the triad of functions of judicial doctrine, namely interpretation, addition and correction of law. It is proved that social and technological challenges predetermine the emergence of judicial doctrines aimed at rethinking and interpreting positive law, its addition and correction. The author concludes that the evolution of private law is based on the dialectical unity of legal and judicial doctrine, each of which implements its functional triad.