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3 J. Hum. Just. 1 (1991-1992)

handle is hein.journals/ctlcrm3 and id is 1 raw text is: Editors' Introduction Rethinking the Law and Social Transformation Debate: Beyond the Correspondence Metaphor N.C. Sargent, Carleton University It seems appropriate to dedicate an issue of the Journal of Human Justice to the theme of law and social transformation, since this theme appears to be at the forefront of many of the contemporary debates within the field of sociology of law in Canada. These debates have acquired a particular importance in view of the enactment of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, which gives new powers to the courts to become involved in mediating disputes over fundamental social policy issues. As a result, the role of law as an arena for social and political change, and particularly the potential of legal rights struggles as a form of political action, have increasingly climbed to the top of the intellectual agenda for many sociolo- gists of law and legal theorists alike. In this sense, Comack and Brickey (1991) argue that there has been a significant shift in the focus of inquiry within Canadian sociology of law in recent decades, which in turn reflects a shift in theoretical paradigms within sociology itself. Up until the end of the 1960s, the dominant theoretical paradigm within Canadian sociology of law was structural functionalism. The structural functionalism paradigm ascribes a particu- lar role to law. Law is seen as an important integrative mechanism which functions to maintain the cohesiveness of social relations by reflecting a particular image of society and a dominant set of social values. Within this paradigm legal reforms tend to be viewed as reflecting changes in under- lying social and political values, rather than as instigating them. Conse- quently, relatively little attention is given to theorizing the role of law as an instrument for social transformation (Comack and Brickey, 1991). During the past two decades, however, the dominant functionalist paradigm within Canadian sociology of law has been superseded by a new theoretical paradigm - liberal pluralism (Comack and Brickey, 1991). Liberal pluralism ascribes a much more pro-active role to law as an agency for social transformation. Instead of seeing the relationship between law and society as essentially static and unchanging, the liberal pluralist paradigm within Canadian sociology of law places more emphasis on the need for a more historically and socially contextualized investigation into the relationship between law and society. Law does not just reflect society's 'values' in any self-evident way. Social values are inherently political, and therefore are always contested and open to renegotiation, depending on the balance of social forces at any given time within any social formation. Law, therefore, also comes to be seen as political, as an arena or site of political power over which various groups or interests in society compete (Comack and Brickey, 1991).

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