Eugen Ehrlich´s notion about justice and concepts of justice in Brazil and Ukraine

Abstract

Eugen Ehrlich (1862-1922) conceived the idea of justice in aspects of social statics and social dynamics. According to social static, every right is just an expression of the facts of the existing law. For social dynamics, otherwise, the legal precept not only keeps the existing, but also constitutes society instrument to regulate relations in the associations according to their interests. The great driving forces of this dynamic are the individualism and the community idea. According to Ehrlich the social idea of justice did not eliminate the individualism’s ideal of justice, but materialized it. Brazil and Ukraine are part of the third and fourth waves of constitutionalization that occurred after World War II. Both countries show that the formal constitutional renewal did not mean strictly institutional renewal. In Brazil, the lack of citizenship is crucial for the fragility of constitutional values in society and for its effective democratization. The pluralism that marks Brazilian society, a pluralism in a negative sense, because it is characterized by profound inequality of the national society, prevents the necessary consensus to strengthen the Community idea. The Ukrainian case reinforces the independence of the judiciary and the judges as indispensable factor for the realization of justice.