Civil society as the guarantee of existence of the legal state

Straipsnyje remiantis Nepriklausomos Lietuvos 1918-1940 m. doktrina, tuo laikotarpiu kurtais teisinės valstybės ir įsivaizduojamos pilietinės visuomenės modeliais nagrinėjamas pilietinės visuomenės ir teisinės valstybės ryšys ir tarpusavio sąveika. Pirmoje straipsnio dalyje aptariama teisinės valstybės samprata daugiausia dėmesio skiriant Mykolo Romerio tyrinėjimams. Antroje dalyje remiantis M. Romerio ir Antano Maceinos darbais nagrinėjamas tuo metu kurtos pilietinės visuomenės modelis. Konstatuojama, kad 1918-1940 m. Lietuvos socialinėje doktrinoje iš esmės buvo nustatyta teisinės valstybės ir pilietinės visuomenės tarpusavio sąveika, tačiau trečiame XX a. dešimtmetyje įvykę politiniai pokyčiai šalyje turėjo neigiamų pasekmių pilietinės visuomenės formavimuisi, o kartu tapo kliūtimi įgyvendinti teisinės valstybės idėją.Paper deals with mutual conditionality of existence between the civil society and legal state. The paper is based on the 1918-1940 doctrine of independent Lithuania, the models of the legal state and the tentative models of the civil society created at that time. In the first part of the article, the concept of the legal state is discussed. In terms of creation of the model of the legal state, M. Romeris works are of exceptional importance. It his works, M. Romeris related the legal state in essence with the legal, procedural system for ensuring the lawfulness. On the basis of works of European scholars of the 19th-20th centuries, M. Romeris conducted a critical analysis of the legal state and elucidated its most significant traits. It is notable that M. Romeris was able to make a correct insight into the strategy of advancing towards the legal state. In the second part of the article, a model of the created civil society created at the time is studied on the basis of the works of M. Romeris and A. Maceina. In implementing the provisions of the legal state, the formation of an active civil society became a necessity. M. Romeris presented its model, not arguing for the national society but focusing on the implementation of the institutions and principles of democracy. In such society, the state cooperation of national groups should be established, where the Lithuanian nation as the majority of the population should have the status of the master: the nation of the majority allows other national minorities into the organization of the state. A conclusion follows from M. Romeris’ studies: active civil society is necessary for real implementation of the legal state model; on the other hand, the existence of the legal sate guarantees the development of the civil society. Nevertheless, in the third decade of the 20th century, the model of civil society under formation experienced a negative transformation when the idea of corporativism has been entrenched in the social thought. The paper establishes that the mutual conditionality of existence between the legal state and civil society in essence had been established, whereas the political changes that occurred in the country in the third decade of the 20th century had negative consequences on the formation of civil society and simultaneously became an obstacle in implementing the idea of the legal state in practice