Definition of Legal Awareness – As a community living in a rule-of-law country, it is already a certainty for every member of the community to obey and comply with every applicable legal rule.
The design of social interaction has a positive effect on society, although the will and interests differ from individual to individual. Everyone has different desires and interests. These differences in interests can lead to conflict in social life.
This can affect environmental conditions that become dangerous. Therefore, to prevent conflicts or negative issues from occurring, it is necessary to have laws governing the development of attitudes towards legal awareness to create human relations in life. Instilling legal awareness in each individual increases compliance with applicable laws. Compliance and adherence to mandatory, regulatory and binding regulations or laws.
The granting of rules to persons or individuals who are trained to enforce the rule of law. Compulsory use has a deterrent effect for violators. Because there are strict sanctions from the authorities to solve the problem.
Legal awareness is needed by every community, from small children to adults. It aims to create order, peace, justice, and peace that can be realized in life or even interactions between communities. If you do not have legal awareness that has been embedded in every individual, then the desired goals will be difficult to achieve.
For this reason, to provide education for you about the importance of legal awareness in social life, in this discussion we will summarize various related information about legal awareness that you can learn at home.
You can see further discussion regarding legal awareness below!
Definition of Legal Awareness
Law is a rule of life created to achieve the values desired by society. One of the values sought by law is order. Order means obedience and obedience to behavior in carrying out what is prohibited and determined by law.
Concretely, we can take a simple example of setting traffic rules. The purpose of the laws and regulations issued in the field of transportation is to regulate the operation of transportation. It also serves to protect the interests and rights of others.
Promoting this type of legal knowledge is a challenge and a responsibility for all. A true culture of awareness and law abiding must be inculcated from an early age. Then the pedagogic element becomes the spearhead in introducing attitudes and habits to follow the rules that have been set.
Educational institutions are the main social media that greatly influence a person’s character in the future. If law-abiding attitudes and behavior are ingrained from an early age, then the attitude of respecting and following the rules will take root and take root in society in the future. Of course, this is done by providing correct information about what not to do and what to do.
The high level of legal awareness in the area creates a civilized society. Build legal awareness early on, you don’t have to wait until the violations and police action are over. Prevention is considered very important and can be started from the family as the smallest unit in society. We have to build this awareness in the family.
With the awareness of this law, we do not witness violations to find an ideal life. Formal, non-formal and informal educational institutions must be united to develop legal awareness and intelligence from an early age.
Legal education is not limited to formal schooling. But it can also be done outside of school. Children should be taught from an early age to study law. In time it gave them a sense of the need for the rule of law. Thus, legal awareness is formed from an early age.
Legal Awareness can be interpreted as a person or group of people who are aware of applicable rules or laws. It serves to achieve order, peace, tranquility and justice in human relations. Without high legal knowledge, this goal is very difficult to achieve.
This also happened to students, for example there were fights between students because students did not know the legal situation. As a result of weak legal awareness, people’s lives become restless and restless. Therefore we must develop a conscious approach to the law.
Awareness of rights must be instilled early on in the family environment, namely so that each family member can practice understanding their rights and obligations towards the family, respecting the rights of other family members and fulfilling their obligations before demanding their rights. If possible, he is used to applying awareness that already exists in the wider environment, namely society and even the state.
Definition of Legal Awareness According to Experts
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Wignjosoebroto
According to Wignjosoebroto, legal awareness is the will of the community to behave in accordance with existing laws. Legal awareness has two dimensions, namely cognitive and affective. Cognitive is knowledge of the laws that govern certain behaviors, both prohibited and prescribed according to predetermined laws. At the same time, effectiveness is a form of awareness that recognizes that laws must be obeyed.
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Abdurrahman
According to Abdurrahman, legal awareness is awareness of legal values inherent in human life to submit and comply with applicable laws.
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Soerjono Soekanto
Meanwhile, according to Soerjono Soekanto, legal awareness follows law in various fields, including issues of knowledge, recognition and law enforcement. Legal awareness focuses on the existence of legal knowledge, from this legal knowledge arises recognition and respect for legal principles, then the law follows.
Factors Triggering Legal Awareness
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Legal Knowledge
The first factor influencing legal awareness is knowledge of legal awareness. The rule of law must be widespread and legally enforceable. Then the recipe spread by itself and quickly became known to the public. People who violate do not necessarily break the law. This is because the public does not understand and know the laws and regulations that apply in the law itself. According to Ahmad Ubbe in Several Aspects of Legal Awareness of the Peusangan Society (Study on the Institutionalization of Marriage Law in 1974) (1988), knowledge of the existence of legal regulations is an indicator of minimal legal awareness.
With legal knowledge, one knows what laws exist, what is prohibited and what is permitted. Law violations are often the result of a lack of legal knowledge. For example, there are people who hunt protected animals for their daily food. This happens because they do not know that these animals are rare animals that are prohibited by law from being hunted.
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Legal Understanding
The next factor affecting legal awareness is the public’s respect for the law. Thus, all the benefits of society depend on the provisions of the law itself. However, we also believe that compliance with the law stems from a fear of punishment or the consequences of breaking the law.
Legal understanding is an indicator of legal awareness, which means not only knowing that the law exists, but also understanding its contents. If you understand the law, you can understand its content, purpose, benefits, and also the consequences of breaking it. The definition of law does not only refer to written law, but also unwritten law, such as the norms that apply in society.
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Legal Attitude
According to Soerjono Soekanto in the book Legal Awareness and Legal Compliance (1977), legal attitude is a tendency to accept the law because the law is deemed useful or useful if the law is obeyed. Legal attitudes result from individual and citizen assessments of applicable law.
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Legal Conduct
Legal behavior is the most important indicator of citizens’ legal awareness. The pattern of behavior of law-abiding citizens means that the law really applies and is effective in society. However, in the case of many violations, the law does not apply or has no effect on society. Thus, legal behavior becomes an indicator of legal awareness, which can be read from the degree of legal compliance of its citizens.
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Strengthening Legal Awareness
The purpose of raising awareness about legal issues is for people to understand the law according to their needs. Advocates who are in charge of raising awareness of legal issues in society are in direct contact with the community.
Characteristics of Legal Awareness
When the sense of justice in society is high, there will definitely be peace in society. The characteristics of high legal awareness in society are as follows:
- Legal compliance or high legal compliance of all community groups.
- Light violation of the law is guaranteed.
- The community understands all their rights and obligations.
- High level of trust in law enforcement
- There is no discrimination in law enforcement.
Ways To Increase Legal Awareness In Society
All people need legal awareness, from small children to adults. This aims to create order, peace, justice and peace that can be realized in life or even in interactions between communities.
Without legal awareness that exists in every individual, it becomes difficult to achieve the desired goals.
The impact of weak legal awareness on people’s lives will be disorganized. Therefore, there are several ways to increase public legal awareness as follows:
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Increase legal awareness from an early age
The sense of justice must be realized since childhood, from the family environment. Each family member can educate himself to understand family rights and responsibilities.
Able to perform tasks properly before demanding rights that must be received. As well as respecting the rights of other family members. If this is successful, it will create widespread legal awareness. Promote compliance with applicable laws.
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Increasing legal awareness
Community legal knowledge of various provisions that exist and apply in society is the most important thing in relation to the provisions of the rule of law. Indirectly it can affect the level of one’s knowledge of applicable laws.
Regulations that are made and apply are automatically disseminated. Therefore, these rules can be quickly known by the public.
However, there are several groups of people who are not aware of the applicable regulations. This often happens because people’s knowledge of laws and regulations is inadequate.
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Increase legal understanding
Legal understanding means that the person knows the content that comes from the regulations. To understand each law, it is not necessary to know its content and rules first. But can understand someone’s response to the rules that apply.
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Conduct legal awareness dissemination
Legal awareness is an important issue in the life of every person or social group. Therefore, the government must socialize the meaning of applicable law. So that people do not understand how important law is in life.
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Increased legal compliance
Public compliance with the law must be increased by ensuring that all activities do not violate applicable regulations. Obeying the law will lead to an orderly life and avoid negative things such as conflict.
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Practicing legal actions
Model of legal behavior is an important topic in growing legal awareness. This model indicates whether the set rules are executed correctly or not. Otherwise, as a law-abiding society, we must behave according to the rules.
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Encouraging a legal attitude
The legalistic attitude is the tendency of society to accept the law. Because the law is considered as something valuable and useful when the law is obeyed.
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Improving public understanding The law protects the public
Everyone definitely needs protection from others. Therefore, the duty of law is to protect common interests. A sense of protection can be achieved if people are able to comply with the law properly. So that people can avoid various threats that are around them.
Various law violations in society are caused by several things. This often happens to certain groups of people who do not know or understand certain regulations.
Many people do not understand legal language. This reduces public awareness of the law.
When people know the content and purpose of legal norms, people know that the law exists. Community legal awareness is influenced by community legal knowledge of the applicable laws and regulations.
Therefore, the government’s role is needed to increase legal awareness. Making people understand the importance of legal awareness.
Example of Legal Awareness in Society
Although not all law-abiding people have good legal awareness (sense of law), it is certain that people who understand the law always uphold law enforcement in Indonesia.
Examples of good legal awareness behavior can be seen in the following examples:
- There is a birth certificate.
- Obey traffic rules.
- Success in elementary school is mandatory.
- Don’t do anything that violates the law.
- Pay your taxes on time.
- Maintain the good name of the nation and state
- Comply and obey the rules set by the state, such as paying taxes and obeying traffic rules on the highway.
- Mutual respect between citizens
- Maintain a good name in society
- Respect citizens
- Follow and obey the rules of society
- Act according to existing standards
- Maintain public order, security and tranquility at all times.
Conclusion
This is a brief discussion of the definition of legal awareness. The discussion this time does not only discuss the definition of legal awareness, but also discusses further the triggering factors, their characteristics, and examples of legal awareness that Sinaumed’s can take a good look at.
Understanding the meaning of legal awareness gives us additional knowledge about various regulations and applicable legal products that can have a good impact on ourselves and the surrounding environment to become obedient citizens and comply with applicable legal regulations.
Thus a review of the notion of legal awareness. For Sinaumed’s who want to learn everything about the notion of legal awareness. And other law-related knowledge, you can visit sinaumedia.com to get related books.
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Author: Pandu Akram