Critique of Legal Responsibility (Summary)
Kritika právní odpovědnosti (Wolters Kluwer 2017)
Charles University in Prague Faculty of Law Research Paper No. 2018/I/5
29 Pages Posted: 2 May 2018 Last revised: 3 Dec 2019
Date Written: 2017
Abstract
Slavic languages are generally unable to differentiate between responsibility and liability. Where English or German use responsibility/Verantwortung and liability/Haftung, Slavic languages capture both meanings by only one expression. If we mix this with the historical fact of how legal thinking evolved during the Cold War period, it gives us quite interesting results.
The book combines the methods of historical, doctrinal, and philosophical comparative legal analysis to unveil how analyse the distinct models of thought regarding legal responsibility have developed in selected European jurisdictions. By critically looking at the concept of legal responsibility in common law, Germanic and socialist legal traditions this book addresses a specific problem of the post-socialist (namely Czech) philosophy of private law which, as far as responsibility is concerned, is still rooted in the materialist legal philosophy as it was advocated by the theorists of the so-called Eastern bloc. One of the main aims of the book is to re-establish and facilitate intellectual debate between the Czech and West-European legal scholars.
Note: The attached pdf is an English summary from this book. It also includes a list of references. The book itself is written in Czech under the title "Kritika právní odpovědnosti" (in English "Critique of Legal Responsibility").
Keywords: liability, responsibility, law, delict, tort, Czech law, civil recourse, rights-based theory, corrective justice, legal history, Roman law, Germanic law, Slavic law, socialist law, materialism
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