Legal science: reflection of reality and formation of the image of the future

The article is devoted to the consideration of the state of legal science and the main directions of its development at the present stage. Attention is emphasized on the availability of scientific potential capable of making the national legal system even more effective, combining the account of achievements of foreign science and its own national interests. The importance of legal monitoring and assessment of the regulatory impact of legal norms as the most important tools to improve the rule­making and law enforcement activities was emphasized. Attention is paid to the necessity of further combination of achievements of law, sociology, social psychology for the development of such direction as riskology. Interdisciplinary interrelations between natural, exact and humanitarian­social sciences could create a basis for the development of legal futurology. It is emphasized that the legal science is involved in the realization of several functions: rule­making (the principle of scientificity is envisaged as one of the bases of the rule­making process), ideological (legal ideology is the core of the ideo­ logy of the Belarusian state), upbringing and educational. The combination of these functions is of great importance for the state.