Elías Díaz (1934-2025), In memoriam

Elías Díaz, a key figure in the renewal of law studies in Spain, and not only on legal philosophy, died last February the 3rd, 2025. Elías was one of those teachers that many of us consider a master. A master, because he contributed prominently to set in motion a profound renewal of the teaching of Law, and not just within the field of his discipline, in which he had seminal influence. Master of so many generations of students who trained with his manual Sociology and Philosophy of Law, in which he proposed a momentous turn by incorporating doctrinal traditions that ranged from legal positivism (with an important reference to Kelsen), to analytical philosophy or Marxism, as well as sociological perspective. A master whom, together with other colleagues and disciples, opened pathways that enabled relationships between our Universities and prominent figures of the legal philosophical world, such as Bobbio or Treves. A master, lastly, who leaves behind a very prestigious generation of professors, even if he always rejected the closed system of schools of thought, which dominated the University at the time.

In writing these lines for the RCSL Newletter, at the kind requestof the President of the Research Committee on Sociology of Law (ISA), Professor Pierre Gibentif, whom I thank for his deference, I must highlight in particular Elías Díaz’s contribution to legal sociology studies, and likewise, although it is less known, to the creation of the IISL.

Reference to the former seems almost superfluous, given that Elías chose Sociology and Philosophy of Law (1971) as the title for his academic manual, which stemed from his lesson as a professor degree, thus bringing to the fore a discipline that did not exist in the Spanish University of the time, nor in the faculties of Politics and Sociology, much less in Law faculties. It is worth noting that two years later Elías Díaz prepared a report («The teaching of legal sociology in Spain») for discussion at the RCSL session, within the VIII ISA world congress held in Toronto in 1974, in which he offered a good map of the issue.

This attention to legal sociology was, I believe, largely due to the influence of two of his teachers, Enrique Tierno Galván in the first place, and later on Renato Treves. Elias attributed to the sociology of Law the fundamental function of studying Law as a social fact, highlightingthe problem of interconnections between Law and Society and, therefore, what he called «effective legitimacy», while underlining the difference between legitimacy and legitimation. Some of Elías’ disciples became prestigious professors and researchers in sociology (Carabaña, Toharia, Rodríguez Aramberri and Zaragoza, among others).

It is equally necessary to emphasise Elías’ relationship with Oñati’s International Institute of Legal Sociology. The Basque Government’s decision to create it, alongside the RCSL, has largely and rightfully been attributed to the prominent role of three personalities: Renato Treves, André-Jean Arnaud and Francisco Caballero Harriet. Nonetheless,as a second-row spectator in that process, I must recall that, alongside them, Elías Díaz played an important role. Both as a result of his close relationship with Treves and his disciple, Vincenzo Ferrari, and by virtue of his own prestige as a promoter of the sociology of Law in Spain’s academic studies.

In addition, Elías Díaz was one of the most significant intellectuals in the resistance against Franco’s dictatorship, which entailed a considerable academic and professional cost, for he suffered reprisals, such as his confinement during the state of emergency in 1969. He was co-founder of Cuadernos para el Diálogo and Sistema. His book Estado de Derecho y sociedad democrática, published at the height of the Franco regime in 1966, is particularly emblematic of this exemplary position and had a very considerable influence.

Among his works, Estado de Derecho y sociedad democrática (1966), Sociología y Filosofía del Derecho (1971), La filosofía social del krausismo español (1973), Notas para una historia del pensamiento español (1974), Legalidad-legitimidad del socialismo democrático (1978), De la maldad estatal y la soberanía popular (1984), Los viejos maestros: la reconstrucción de la razón (1994), Un itinerario intelectual, de filosofía jurídica y política (2003), De la Institución a la Constitución. Política y cultura en la España del siglo XX (2009), El derecho y el poder. Realismo crítico y filosofía del derecho (2013).