What are the steps involved in legal analysis?
Identifying legal sources, explaining judicial decisions, reconstructing reasoning, and taking a structured position on judge’s power.
What skill does the course train students to develop regarding legal arguments?
To distinguish legal arguments from moral, philosophical, geopolitical, and social arguments.
What is non-law in Carbonnier's conception?
A sphere law deliberately chooses not to expand, allowing other rules or organizations.
What distinguishes a legal gap from non-law?
A legal gap is unforeseen and must be governed; non-law is intentionally outside law's scope.
What is objective law?
The set of legal rules and norms governing society and defining rights.
What does a subjective right represent?
An individual right recognized by objective law.
Which article of the Civil Code protects the right to respect for private life?
Article 9.
What does natural law consist of?
Universal principles and rights not created by humans.
What authority do natural law principles have over human laws?
They bind authorities and can challenge unjust human laws.
What defines positive law's legal character?
Creation or recognition by a competent authority.
On what does positive law depend rather than intrinsic justice?
Its legal character depends on authority, not intrinsic justice.
What is Normativism according to Hans Kelsen?
A positivist theory where every norm's validity derives from a superior norm in a hierarchy.
What does Kelsen's hierarchy place above the Constitution?
The fundamental norm.
What must each lower norm do in Kelsen's hierarchy?
Conform to the superior norm.
How does state positivism identify law?
As the expression of the sovereign authority's will.
What does sociological positivism study?
How legal rules evolve with society, facts, and customs.
What does the generality of law mean about its application?
It applies to categories of people rather than named individuals.
How does the generality of law affect its usability over time?
It can remain usable across changing situations.
Why does generality support predictability and legal security?
Because people can know the rule in advance and rely on its relative stability.
What does the rule about ignorance of the law require regarding the law?
The law must be accessible and intelligible.
Why must a legal rule be published?
To become effectively accessible and applicable.
What defines an imperative rule in law?
It is mandatory and cannot be excluded by agreements against public order or good morals.
When does a supplementary rule apply in legal agreements?
When parties have not expressed a contrary intention and no valid different choice exists.
How does the state enforce legal rules compared to religious or professional rules?
The state gives legal rules compulsory force and monopolizes justice execution, unlike other rules.
What is the effect of nullity on an irregular legal act?
It erases the legal effect of the irregular act.
What is the purpose of a criminal penalty in law?
To punish violation and seek prevention, rehabilitation, or deterrence without erasing the act.
How does tutorial work assess students in legal studies?
By separate evaluation of written quality and oral rhetoric after document preparation and presentation.
What must public power respect in a state governed by law?
Areas such as individual care and individual freedom.
How does concubinage illustrate legal boundaries?
It started outside detailed legal regulation but later gained legal rights in the Civil Code.
How do definitions of law vary?
According to moral, sociological, philosophical, and political conceptions.
Why does Antigone refuse King Creon's law in Sophocles' play?
Because it contradicts superior, unwritten, and eternal laws.
What influenced the French Revolution and the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man?
Natural-law thinking.
According to Carbonnier, on what does a law's effectiveness depend?
Its acceptance by the society to which it applies.
What does law reflect according to Carbonnier?
Changing facts and customs.
Who argued that law's effectiveness depends on societal acceptance and reflects changing customs?
Carbonnier.
Why could the Civil Code of 1804 govern new situations and catastrophes?
Because its broad provisions were not limited to a single precise case.
What issue does the increasing specialization of law raise?
Whether legal rules remain sufficiently general, stable, and intelligible.
What is the goal of legislative simplification and legal drafting?
To replace specialized legal vocabulary with clearer language.
How do publication of judicial decisions and transparency affect public knowledge?
They contribute to knowledge of legal interpretations and judicial behaviour.
How can soft law acquire legal force?
By later legislation or judicial recognition giving it formal legal force.
Test your knowledge with 19 questions on Foundations and Qualities of Law.
1. Which sequence best describes the main stages of legal analysis?
2. A court case raises both ethical concerns and questions about statutory interpretation. What should a legal professional do when analyzing it?
Review the complete course in the study sheet for Foundations and Qualities of Law.
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