The article examines the relationship between the validity of a legal norm and the effectiveness of law through a critique of the mechanistic view of legal regulation that reduces it mainly to a sequence of state-driven normative impacts. Relying on a systems approach, the study argues that legal regulation constitutes a complex interrelation of normative enactments, legal relations, law-enforcement practice, and legal communication, within which a formally enacted rule becomes operative only insofar as it is integrated into a functioning legal order. The paper demonstrates that the criteria of a norm’s operation are not exhausted by formal certainty and sanction-backed character; rather, they presuppose social legitimacy, psychological binding force, and procedural guarantees of legal protection. The article concludes that the validity of norms and the effectiveness of law should be treated as interdependent characteristics of the legal system, enabling a more adequate assessment of the stability of the legal order and the limits of normative influence in contemporary socio-cultural conditions.
Sergey Nikolaevich Khrameshin (Fri,) studied this question.
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