Summary

The article addresses issues concerning the role of statehood in the establishment of the legal order and the relations between law and Estonian language.
Although the history of Estonia provides definite proof that Estonia had a legal autonomous integrity long before the proclamation of its independence in 1918, the author stresses that the genuine history of law begins with its recording by the legislator. Under the conditions of statehood, legal solutions must be based on political choices made by the state through compromise. Legal solutions cannot be derived a priori from other societies organised as states.
In addition to the legal validity of rules, their social validity must also be ensured. The state must be able to provide rules with fair content. Rules give rise to the law if the legislator (the state) records something which is valid in time and space, finds that everyone should act in a certain way and recognises that such conduct is based on a conventional understanding of the morals. However, the legislator must be able to establish sufficiently general and comprehensible rules of law so that ordinary men and women can, without much effort, make decisions which observe the law. Only laws which are written based on a high language culture provide a basis for legally correct decision making.
The article is based on a presentation made at the 80^th anniversary of the University of Tartu on 1 December 1999.