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IOWA LAW REVIEW
[Vol 53
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This being so, there simply is no time for the law to evolve gradually
in response to pressures of public opinion." 1 The legal system that
exists was necessarily designed to meet the needs of the existing
society, and it is clear that it will be inadequate to meet the needs
of the new society that is sought to be created., 2 Since the effort is to
transform the society rapidly, the legal system must be transformed
at the same pace. New law and new legal institutions must be established
in a relatively short period of time, and they will be so established
according to a definite plan. It is this kind of development with
which we will be concerned.
The development must also be considered in temporal perspective.
The impetus for the development of the legal system is a revolutionary
change in the nature of the existing society. A new legal system must
be established to reflect the changed needs and values of the new
society. The clearest example is the achieving of independence by
a former colony. In such countries, modern concepts of law and
modern legal institutions may exist to some extent, because they were
imposed by the colonial power. But they were established in a colonial
context, and upon independence, that nation must create the kind
of legal system suitable for an independent nation in the process of
modernization. An actual revolution, resulting in the overthrow of
the existing government, may also betoken the need for a new legal
system. Turkey, for example, had to develop a new legal system
following the overthrow of the Ottoman Empire. 3 It did not matter
that a fully-developed legal system existed, since that system reflected
the needs, values, and institutions of Ottoman society.' 4 When a
conscious effort was made to abolish such values and institutions, the
existing legal system was thereby rendered inadequate. The same
was true in Japan following the Meiji Restoration of 1868. One writer
has observed that the "history of Japanese law since the Restoration
of 1868 is almost synonymous with an account of the reception of
occidental law and legal science."' 5 The existing body of law had
developed in response to the needs of the feudal society and would
"For a discussion of the relationship between public opinion and new law see
W. Rm -NxN, LAw IN A CHANGING SocIY 10-12 (1959). See generally A. DiC=r,
LAw Am PuBLic Opxniou IN ENGLAND (2d ed. 1963).
12 See A. ALLOw, EssAYs In Arncm LAw 55-56 (1960).
13A concise summary of the development of this system will be found in .
REDDEN, LEGAL EDucATiO x I TuRKEY 6-8 (Joint Publication Series No. 6, 1957).
14 Ottoman society had a religious base; the new society was to be completely
secular.
25 Takayanagi, A Century of Innovation: The Development of Japanese Law,
1868-1961, in LAW IN JAPAN 5, 36-37 (A. Von Mehren ed. 1963).