Law Beyond Time: The Representation of Time at Law School

Abstract

This article attempts to analyze the relationship between legal ideology, and the representation of time, using the example of teaching of law at the Law Faculty of the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. Research conducted by anthropologists over several decades,shows that the action and effectiveness of the law is directly connected to the representation of time and history. This connection is not exclusive to illiterate cultures, unable to «fix» their own history in record, but also for modern western societies. Law, taking an active stance in relation to its own past, constantly reinvents its history to maintain its effectiveness. The example of the University Paris-I demonstrates how in a professor's discourse, lesson structure, and composition of courses, the distinction between historical law, deprived of its power, and the law in force, devoid of its historical context, is reproduced. This distinction allows the «forgetting» of the origin of certain existing rules, clearing the law of its social and political context. This ahistorical image of the law in force is directly related to legal positivism and the idea of «pure» law. The timelessness of law ensures its autonomy as a field of knowledge and practices, comprehension of which is possible only within the framework of legal logic, while non-legal arguments are excluded from the discussion.