Sociological Approach: LAW

Sociological Approach: Social-engineering

Roscoe Pound
“ Law is social engineering which means a
balance between the competing interests in
society”
 Sociological Approach: Social-engineering

a) Law – “social-engineering”
b) Lawyers, judges, legislators and others – “social
engineers”
c) Purpose of “social-engineering” – make balance between
the competing interest in society
 Sociological Approach: Social-engineering
Law: From the perspective of sociological approach

Sociological jurisprudence should ensure that the making, interpretation, and

application of laws take account of social facts. Towards achieving this end, he
suggested a comprehensive program, covering every aspect of the social study of
laws.

Comprehensive program: There should be

(a) A factual study of the social effects of legal administration,
(b) Social investigations as preliminaries to legislation,
(c) A constant study of the means for making laws more effective, which involves,

o The study, both psychological and philosophical, of the judicial method,

o A sociological study of legal history,
o Allowance for the possibility of a just and reasonable solution of individual
cases,
o A ministry of justice, and
o The achievement of purposes of the various laws
 Sociological Approach: Social-engineering

Objective of law: “satisfy maximum human wants for minimum

friction”

Achievement of the “Objective aspect of law”: In order to

achieve this Objective Pound refer the “social engineering”
method that means making laws that engineer society.
 Sociological Approach: Social-engineering

Social-engineering
o Social: Group of individual forming a society
o Engineering: Application of science carried out by
engineers to produce finished products, based on
continuous experimentation and experience to get the
finished product by means of an instrument or device.

Engineer from the perspective of law (social-engineer):

Lawyers, judges,
legislators
Main function of social-engineer: Comprehensive study/program
 Sociological Approach: Social-engineering

Law is social engineering which means a balance between the

competing interests in society

Interest in society: In a society everybody is motivated by their own

interest and wants that preference be given to his or her interest over
the other. Conflicts between interests arise because of the competition
of the individuals with each other, with the public in order to satisfy
human wants. Therefore it is needed to recognize the interest to which
law should take account. For this purpose a legal system has to

1) Recognize certain interest

2) Define the limits within which such interest are to be legally
recognized and given effect to it.
3) And finally the above interest should be secured.
 Sociological Approach: Social-engineering

Interest : Classification of interest

Individual interests:
(1) Personality (physical person, freedom of will, honour and reputation, privacy, and belief and opinion);
(2) Domestic relations (interests of parents, children, husbands and wives);
(3) Interests of substance (interests of property, freedom of industry and contract, promised advantages,
advantageous relations with others, freedom of association, and continuity of employment).

Public interests:
(1) Interests of the state as a juristic person (the integrity, freedom of action and honour of the state‘s personality,
and claims of the politically organized society as a corporation to property acquired and held for corporate
purposes);
(2) Interests of the state as guardian of social interests. Sometimes overlaps with social interest.

Social interests:
(1) General security (general safety, general health, peace and order, security of acquisitions, and security of
transactions);
(2) Security of social institutions (domestic institutions, political institutions, and economic institutions);
(3) General morals;
(4) Conservation of social resources;
(5) General progress (economic progress such as freedom of use and sale of property, political progress such as
free speech, and conditions of life); and
(6) Individual life (self-assertion, opportunity, and conditions
 Sociological Approach: Social-engineering

Jural Postulate

In order to evaluate the conflicting interests in due order

of priority, pound suggested that every society has
certain basic assumption upon which its ordering
rests, through for most of the time they may be
implicit rather than expressly formulated. This
assumption may be called as jural postulates of the legal
system of that society.
 Jural Postulate
Jural postulate I: In civilized society men must be able to assume that others will
commit no intentional aggression upon them.

Jural postulate II: In civilized society men must be able to assume that they may
control for beneficial purposes
o what they have discovered and appropriated to their own use,
o what they have created by their own labour and
o what they have created by their own labour and what they have acquired under the
existing social and economic order.

Jural postulate III – In a civilized society men must be able to assume that those with
whom they deal as a member of the society will act in good faith and hence-
o Will make good reasonable expectations which their promises or other conduct
reasonably create;
o Will carry out their undertaking according to the expectations which the moral
sentiment of the community attaches thereto.
 Jural Postulate

Jural postulate IV: In civilized society men must be able to assume that those who
engage in some course of conduct will act with due care not to cast an unreasonable
risk of injury upon others.

Jural postulate V: In a civilized society men must be able to assume that others who
maintain things or employ agencies, harmless in the sphere of their use but harmful
in their normal action elsewhere, and having a natural tendency to cross the
boundaries of their proper use will restrain them and keep them within their proper
bounds
o That he will have security as a job-holder
o That society will bear the burden of supporting him when he becomes aged
o That society as a whole will bear the risk of unforeseen misfortunes such as
disablement
 Animal and Environmental Legal Defence Fund vs. Union of India and others
AIR 1997 SC 1071, 1997 (3) SCC 549)

JUDGEMENT: The supreme court applied the principles of Economic

sustainability and environment protection. If the villagers are not permitted
fishing, their livelihood shall be destroyed. If they are permitted there will be a
threaten to the ecology. Hence the Supreme Court ordered the concerned forest
authorities and the Board constituted to take necessary steps to protect the
environment. They shall watch the villagers and give suitable instructions to
them. They shall be educated on the importance of environment. The villagers
should not enter in other areas accepts to the lakes on which they are given
fishing rights.

PRINCIPLE: The supreme court applied sociological approaches in this case for
the welfare of tribal, whose source of livelihood is fishing. Not only in this
case, but also in every environmental case, the sociological approach of their
lordship is crystal clear. Their lordships often say that “law is a social
engineering”.