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Summary (lectures and literature) Introduction To Law (ECB1IL)
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This document contains a summary of the lectures and literature for the course Introduction to Law.
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Introduction to LawWEEK 1 -3:
Source of law; different legal traditions
The Lawyer’s toolbox
The mindset of a lawyer
WEEK 5-6:
Contract law
Property law
Tort law
WEEK 7:
Philosophy of law
Lecture week 1 (Hage, ch. 1)
‘The main question that any introduction to law must answer deals with the nature of law.’
(Hage, p.2)
Characteristics of law – legal rules
Legal rules: prescribe behaviour; create rights/competences (e.g. testators will);
define concepts and procedures; sanction behaviour (e.g. murder)
o Enforced by collective means, i.e. by organs of the state
o Specific sanctions: incarceration, fines, compensation for damage
o Positive law, i.e. ‘laid down’ by the legislator or via judicial decisions
o Legal certainty (yes, but rules may require interpretation)
Non legal rules: religious, etiquette, social rules (e.g. By whom and how is a liar
usually punished?)
Question of sources Answer: historical description of the ‘characteristics of law’ in Europe
Characteristics of law – historical development
Roman law:
o Tribal law law of the Roman people (not of a particular country or region)
Customary law: guidelines for behaviour spontaneously grown;
unwritten; changing slowly over time
Codification: written down customary law
Fall of Roman Empire (395 BCE): Eastern part and Western part
o Fall of Western Roman Empire invasion of German tribes; fall of Rome 455
CE
o Fall of Eastern Roman Empire existing Roman law was codified in Corpus
luris Civilis; fall of Constantinople
Characteristics of law – common law
Common law of England: after fall Western Empire: Norman King William I conquered
England in 1066 system of royal representatives applying everywhere the same law (i.e.
no ‘reception’ of Roman law as on the continent).
1
,Uniformity in the English legal system stems from its particular reasoning practice ‘reason
by analogy’, i.e. factually similar cases are treated similarly.
Reason by analogy leads to the ‘doctrine of precedent’
o Identification of what is already customary law
o Stare decisis, i.e. creation of new law
Equity: rules and principles mitigating the harsh results of law (Hage, p. 11)
Characteristics of law – civil law
After fall of Western Empire: reception of Roman law via the study of Digest and
Canon law, which spread over Europe (i.e. Ius Commune) and became influential
because ‘rational’.
Peace of Westphalia 1648 creation of Nation-States on the continent
After French Revolution (1789 – 1799) formalization of national law
o Codification of law, i.e. the ‘codex’ with a primary focus on rules (not facts)
made by state legislator (top town)
Reasoning: rule-based what can we find ‘in’ the rules that support this case?
o Uniformity in the law is the result of the application of a codified system of
rules, i.e. reasoning by rules ← →doctrine of precedent
Civil Law Common Law
Codification – systematic development law ‘Unwritten law’ – development in courts
Building blocks are texts – top-down Building blocks are cases – bottom-up
approach approach
Primary source is codex/rules Doctrine of precedent
Trial by judge Trial by jury
Sources of law
1. Codified standards
Written rules that help us understand how we organize behaviour
Enables us to predict what the consequences of legal actions will be
2. Practice of law
Sometimes legislation must be applied in a given case to make it more
specific; This is done by courts and tribunals who produce case law
Case law: application of law
3. Legal writings and teachings
Courts can refer back to publications of academia
4. Religious writings and teachings
5. Customary law
Law that can be deduced from a long-lasting habit/tradition (which is
recognized by all parties/members)
Not necessarily written down
Immutable
6. General principles of law (customary law)
For example: fair trial
Introduction to law – Chapter 1: Sources of Law (Week 1)
What is law?
2
,The law is multifaceted, and arguably has been in flux over centuries. In this current age of
globalization and Europeanization, it is changing at such a high speed that it is impossible to
give a short definition of law from the outset. What is possible, however, is to mention a few
characteristics of law. The majority of legal phenomena share most of these characteristics,
but not all legal phenomena share all of them.
A substantial part of law exists in the form of rules. These rules do not only specify how
people should behave (e.g. do not steal; everybody with an income must pay income tax),
but they also contain definitions of terms, create competencies, and much more.
Society is governed not only by legal rules but also by other types of rules, such as rules that
belong to:
A religion
Etiquette
Special organizations such as students associations
Legal rules Other rules
Are enforced by collective means and in Are not enforced by collective means
particular by organs of the state
Have very specific sanctions, such as fines, Have less specific sanctions
compensation of damage, etc.
Functions of law the organization of just behaviour:
a. Justice
Moral conviction of what is right/wrong value judgement
b. Opportuness
Practical it needs to work
c. Legal certainty
‘I can only be punished for something, I could reasonably know was forbidden
at the time that I committed the act’
Legal certainty creates a situation in which I can reasonably understand what
the legal consequences are when I behave in a particular manner
I can predict of the outcome of behaviour in terms of law
Positive law vs. natural law
both express a fundamentally different idea on what law should be, on how we should
organize just behaviour
Positive law:
Law can only be law when it is codified; before codification, the law just does not
exist
Pro: great deal of legal certainty we truly understand what the law is since we can
read it; we can reasonably predict the legal outcome of our behaviour because we
can read what we consider to be law
Con: if we need legal text to define what is right or wrong, we might loose ourselves
in these texts; we may forget that there are things like fundamental rights, which are
assumed natural
Natural law:
3
, Law is assumed to be already out there a natural thing that we can figure out
through reasoning; it does not necessarily have to be written down, it can also just be
what it is
E.g. human rights law: we assume that this is just a natural state of affairs we all
have human rights for the simple fact that we are human beings, this is in our nature
Pro: we do not need written texts to understand what is right/wrong, because it is
just simply right/wrong we can act accordingly
Con: it can lead to legal uncertainty, since it can be a little vague; difficult
interpretations
At present, most laws are explicitly created by means of legislation or judicial decisions.
These laws are called positive law.
Legal certainty has at least three aspects:
1. Certainty about the content of law
2. Certainty that the law will be enforced
3. Certainty that the law will pe applied consistently
1.
It is often easy to establish the contents of positive law. The rules only need to be looked up
in legislation or in judicial decisions. Positive law offers legal certainty. Therefore, it is
usually unnecessary to invoke an authority such as a judge to settle a legal dispute. The
parties can predict what the judge’s decision would be, and in that way save both them and
society at large, time and money.
If the issue at stake is not what the positive law is, but rather what is really right, it may be
much harder to reach agreement. People often disagree about what is right or wrong. This
predicament creates less favourable conditions for a smooth functioning society than the
certainty of positive law. Often it is better to have no conflicts or fast solutions for conflicts,
than to have laboriously reach right solution. Therefore, law often prefers the certainty of a
clear result over the uncertainty of the best solution for a problem.
2.
Positive law offers legal certainty in a different manner, namely by providing collective
support for the enforcement of legal duties. If people are left to their own devices when it
comes to enforcing their rights, this decreases the certainty that the rights will be respected.
3.
Similar cases are treated in a similar fashion – or in other words – the law will be applied
consistently.
Roman law
Our present-day law is the outcome of a historical development in which the sources of law
play an important role.
Historical descriptions of the development of law in Europe often start with the impressive
legal system built by the Romans in the period ranging from the eight century BCE until the
sixth century CE.
The roman system started out in a simple form: tribal customary law. The law of Romans
was not the law of a country or a state, but the law of a people, namely the Roman people.
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