Abstract
The chapter deals with the transformations of citizenship as a legal institution. It uses a more general point of view of systems approaches to law (Luhmann, Canaris).
The main topic represents an analysis of relations between legal regulation and social reality. This analysis opens wide range of legal theoretical issues, from the autonomy of law to the relations of law to other normative systems.
The main aim of the contribution is to illustrate possibilities of systems approaches to law in solving complex questions flowing from the pluralist relations between legal orders and corresponding problem of interaction among normative systems. An adequate answer to key legal theoretical question to what extent is law being changed by facts, provides Luhmann's theory, mainly his thesis about the cognitive openness of law.
At the same time the contribution shows that a thesis about normative closure of law is difficultly tenable in situations of simultaneously applicable legal systems and sources of public authority.