The modern juridical science has assigned one of the priority places to the study of theoretical and legal problems of democracy. Taking into account the leading directions and orientations that modern western science sets before itself, it is quite possible to assert that the value-legal bases of democracy today and in retrospect are of primary importance in the scientific intentions of juridical scholars. This interest which concerns a wide range of science scholars is caused primarily by the need for today’s demands of social progress.

At the same time, researching modern life and the history of the development of democracy, the juridical opinion of scholars rarely focuses on Jewish legislation, which more than three thousand years ago reflected the consolidation of democratic values in the original source of Jewish law – the Torah. Despite the lack of terminological consolidation of democracy, such conceptual ideas of law as justice, freedom and equality were laid down at the beginning of Jewish law-making in the norms of the so-called “Jewish Constitution”. Just the norms of the Torah embody the Jewish Constitution, lay the basis for the juridical regulation of legal relations in the Jewish society. As a result, law and order at one or another stage of the development of the Jewish society were a mirror image of the legality observance level in it.

The purpose of the article is to highlight the democratic foundations of the Jewish legal order based on the norms of the Torah by emphasising the fundamental principles of law – equality, justice and freedom, as well as researching the Jewish legal approach to understanding their essence and content in terms of national and religious identity. The author has investigated the understanding and regulation of such basic values of the Jewish legal order as justice, equality and freedom basing on the analysis of the Torah’s norms. The correlation of the principle of equality with the prohibition of assimilation of the Jewish people and the idea of separation and selectivity has been revealed. The author surveys the legislative consolidation of the principle of justice, determined by the guarantee of independence and impartiality of the judiciary combined with the principle of equality. In accordance with the Torah’s norms the legal approach to the understanding of the “freedom” category under conditions of slavery institution existence has been clarified.

Bibliography

Edited and translated books

1. Dal’ R, O demokratii (per s angl, Aspekt Press 2000) (in Russian).

 2. Tora. Pjatiknizhie i gaftarot. Ivritskij tekst s rus’kim perevodom i klassicheskim kommentariem “Sonchino” (Gerc J sost, Mosty kul’tury, Gesharim 2007) (in Russian).