Usually, research in legal disciplines is theoretical. A legal scientist has to read tons of papers (primary sources, doctrine etc.) and apply logical methods.
However, do you think is there a field or questions where a legal scientist can apply empirical approach? - experiment, surveys etc?
I am interested in legal science in a strict sense, not areas connected to the law, but falls into criminology, sociology etc.
Trens in legal studies especially in the realm of Islamic law in modern time has shifted to responding to the emerging issues of today's problems. May I suggest for instance related to this such as "New Trends in Islamic Legal Theory: Maqāṣid
al-Sharīʿa as a New Source of Law?" Die Welt des Islams 57 (2017) 7-32; "Islamic Law in Action: A Historical Discussion" in Law & Social Inquiry Volume 38, Issue 4, 1041–1057, Fall 2013. And the most recent ones include research on how legal maxim implies into preserving environment; how the introduction of regulation and statutes on fighting for corona related issues in Indonesia and Asian countries
Best Regards
Mhd. Syahnan
It is related to everyone's approach in logic of law to determine the value of the empirical data. Some ones may do not consider it because of their logical view which would not allow them to prefer the empirical researches over the theoretical studies.
That's a good question. What do you mean by empirical legal data? Court decision or the results of a law? In the second case you are entering the zone of other sciences such as economics, criminology, statistics and sociology. I applied empirical research in my PhD thesis in the field of Sociology of Law.
Vrasidas Polymenakos Thank you for your answer. I am interested in the possibility of empirical research in pure legal sciences, not in connected areas. Results of law (social effectivity of a rule etc.) are not strictly legal questions.
I think that you should stay in the text of the law (legislative procedure, implementation, court decisions). It's a pure legal approach. The data, that you will collect, will be examined under the method that you will find to fit your project. You should also decide what kind of legal theory are you into (legal positivism, legal realism etc). I hope that this helps.
Vrasidas Polymenakos What I was aiming by this question was that I am aware that we can approach the legal research by using quantitative methods or by using statistics to get information about case-law, of decisions etc. as you have already suggested. My question was if there are also other possible application of empirical methods aside of quantitative analysis of decisions. Do you think that under certain legal theory like naturalism, realism or other is there also possible application of certain empirical methods which are not applicable under other legal theories? May I ask you to explain that further? Thank you.
That's a difficult question. In my knowledge, the closest to that is sociology of law from the legal science perspective (not from sociologist's view). In this case you are examining the law as a social phenomenon not the social powers that ''produce'' the law. Assuming that you don't follow a legal possitivist's perspective and deny the social or ethical aspects of the law. I think that you should check this article Legal Theory and Empirical Research by Denis J. Galligan. The title fits your description.
In my opinion, legal research in a narrow scope would be better done empirically because it can directly examine the law from a practical point of view by comparing it with existing legal theories as well as with existing laws and regulations.
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