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Summary Y1 Introduction to Law
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International Bachelor of LAW Program 2018 - 2019Course Page 1 of
Introduction to Law – Course Notes
Description: 19
Course Notes
Lecture 1: What is Law?
▪ Law can be defined in two definitions:
a. a set of universal moral principles in accordance with nature.
This has no written form. // A written form of this concept defines its validity.
b. a collection of valid rules, commands, or norms that may lack any moral content.
This requires a written form. // The validity of these rules does not make it moral.
e.g. Sophocles’ Antigone: the division of morality and validity of law
▪ Historical Development of Law
Ubi societas, ibi jus (where there’s (civil) society, there is law): from jus to lex (unwritten to written)
o Code of Hammurabi (1760 B.C., currently at Louvre)
o Solon (500 B.C.)
o The Twelve Tables 529-534 A.C: Justinian’s Corpus Juris Civilis (Codex, Digesta, Institutiones)
The most expensive codification. It has been applied in many different law systems.
o 1804: Napoleonic Civil Code (France)
After the French Revolution. Rationalism: belief of knowledge, reasoning.
o 1900: BGG (Germany)
Abstractionism in the law field is used to differ (general) cases
▪ Rule of Law
The concept of Western Legal Systems
o Supremacy of law over arbitrary power
i.e. law operates as a limitation to power.
o Equality before the law
i.e. No one is above the law, officials and citizens need to obey the same law
e.g. Crown Proceedings Act 1947 (Crown to be sued in contract and tort)
o Constitution because of the rights of individuals as defined and enforced by the courts
(Dicey, 1885)
Legal Systems
o Civil Law: Romano-Germanic system of law (from jus commune to national law post-1776)
The development of legal norms in ancient norms. The trust of civil law is invested in the legislative.
o Common Law: Angelo-Saxon system of law
The development of judges and their decision of case-by-case basis. The trust of common law is invested in the judges.
o Religious Law:
- Canon law: systems of rules that is applied by church and equalisation authorities.
- Talmudic law: based on one of the important text of the Hebrew religion.
- Islamic law: system of adjudication, of ethics and of logic that finds its touchstone in the standards of
everyday life.
Differences between civil and common law
Common Law: the judicial decisions of case-by-case basis.
i. Uncodified: unwritten, non-textual law
ii. Casuistic: the building blocks are cases rather than texts.
iii. Elevates doctrine of precedent to a supreme position in the legal system.
iv. “Where there is remedy, there is right.”
v. Trial by jury: the jury decides on the facts of the case; the judge determines the law.
A judge in this system can make, interpret and apply the law.
, International Bachelor of LAW Program 2018 - 2019
Course Page 2 of
Introduction to Law – Course Notes
Description: 19
Civil Law: specifying all matters, with its appropriate punishment, capable of being brought before a court.
i. Codified: written, textual law (prediction for the packability of rule)
ii. Not casuistic: less pragmatic and more theoretical approach of legal problem solving
iii. Not binding cases together
iv. “Where there is right, there is remedy”
v. No trial by jury
A judge in this system can’t make but can interpret and apply the law.
*Customary law: the local, constitutional law, because it’s the people’s law and they are not willing to adopt the law of
someone who posted a law they did not make on them.
Functions of the system of law
o Order: trust the decision-making power to the State (Hobbes)
E.g. the first born gets the crown in royalty; any other child after that will die or will have to fight for its place as first born.
o Justice (Aristotle):
- equality, commutative (task of the judge): possibility for man to have a share that is fair or unfair in
comparison with his neighbour’s share
i.e. a “fair” share does not necessarily need to be an “equal” share.
- distributive (function of the politicians) justice: when the ratio between the things in question is the
same as the ratio between the persons. Its main function is to distribute.
E.g. acting like a legislature or regulator.
- Utilitarianism: the happiness of the greatest number of people in the society is considered the greatest
good (Jeremy Bentham and Rawls)
i.e. an action is morally right if its consequences lead to happiness (absence of pain), and wrong if it ends in
unhappiness (pain).
o Law and Morality [Wacks, pg. 65]
- The HLA Hart V. Fuller Debate: Is Immoral Law valid?
HLA Hart: The law needs to be positivist for it to be valid, following a legal process and create legally binding effects.
Fuller: The validity of law needs to be balanced with morality.
- The HLA Hart v. Devlin Debate: Must law protected ‘shared morality’?
- Hart: Public v. private harm
Lecture 2: Sources of law (1)
▪ Sources of Law
The source of law is the original of the binding legal law/norm/rule.
The determination of a legal obligation is found by the source of law.
- The content and enforcement of a norm does not affect in principle its legal characterization because
many norms tell us how to act, and not all norms belong to a legal system. Even if these norms contain the
same obligation.
e.g. The prohibition of the use of force between States is described in art. 2 (4) of the UN Charter (a treaty).
Jus commune: law that transcended the diversities of local tribes, communities, and nations.
*became a subordinate or supplementary law.
Quod principi placuit habet vigorem (‘the prince’s pleasure is law): justification for the legal autonomy of the
state that led eventually to its displacement in favour of national legal systems.
*the authority of the prince replaced that of the jus commune.
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