Formal Security in the Works of Legal Scholars of Pre-Soviet Period

The article is focused on a retrospective analysis of developments in the field of scientific and theoretical ideas about the formal security in law, suggested by legal scholars in the XIX – early XX centuries. Thus, there was already a clear understanding at that stage that legal norms were designed to accurately record the rights, obligations, certain legal consequences, and the accuracy of legal norms determined their binding nature, the specifics of sanctions, etc. The works of experts in civil studies, encyclopedia and philosophy of law have been analyzed in this way, in particular D. Grimm, N. Gredeskul, J. Pokrovsky, P. Novgorodtsev, L. Petrazhytskyi, N. Korkunov, M. Oleksiiev, Ye. Trubetskyi, G. Shershnevych and others. Despite the lack of the very concept of “formal security” in the pre-Soviet period, legal scholars have repeatedly studied various aspects of the specified issue, especially in the context of studying the features inherent in legal norms and comparing the mechanism of legal and moral norms. Thus, there was a clear understanding even at that stage that legal norms were designed to accurately record the rights, obligations, certain legal consequences, and the accuracy of legal norms determined their binding nature, the specifics of sanctions, etc. At the same time, there were often assessments of formal security as a somewhat severe, purely external phenomenon, which implied a restriction of individual freedom and was mandatory. Undoubtedly, this attitude to the role of formal security distorted the mission of law in society and reduced its axiological potential as a mega-regulator of relations: the state – society – the individual. In turn, this explains the limitations and imperfection of the system of Russian imperial justice, unjustifiably widespread use of formal security in practical legal activities, although it was criticized by some scholars of the early XX century, who studied philosophical and legal issues.