CONTEMPORARY TRANSFORMATIONS AND DISAPPEARANCE OF LEGAL CUSTOMS

Abstract

The question of transformations and disappearance of legal customs is a composite one and engages several different disciplines, such as law, sociology, psychology, ethnology, cultural anthropology, history, and even political sciences. Two main trends exist in the research of this question. The first one treats legal customs as a surpassed system of law, characteristic only for the past, the primary source of law being the written law. According to the other trend, which gains in importance in recent years, in spite of all developments of written law, there still are some positive elements in the unvrittel legal rules, which will the gaps otherwise not covered by official law. Sreten Vukosavljavić is a good example of the authors favouring national, or folk law which is particularly apt for practice in some branches of law, such as the law of waters. Another great protagonist of customary law is Valtazar Bogišić, who collected a grat number of customs of legal sharacter insome regions of the Balkans. Other names include F. Čulinović, M. Kostrenčić, P. Stojanović, and also M. Barjaktarović and Nikola Pavković, who is developing a specivid branch of research in this field – legal ethnology.

The entire complex problem of the old and new customary law should be approached through the overall developoment of societz and its economz, and the raising of the level of legal consciousness which, in the long run, should mean certain narrowing down of written law. Old customary law cannot be simply abolished by decrees, but it should be incorporated, wherever possible, into the existing legal practice, depending on the needs of specific regions.