Introduction to Law

In earlier centuries, the view that judicial decisions were merely evidence of pre-existing law was the fashionable one. Blackst ...

was found to be very inequitable, the King, or rather his secretariat, theChancery, might ask the common law courts to reconside ...

1.4 Ius Commune For most of the Middle Ages (roughly fifth to fifteenth centuriesAD), Western Europe was divided into a variety ...

definition of law, which was already given in the thirteenth century by the Christian theologian and philosopher Thomas Aquinas. ...

small territorial units combined into bigger ones, the modern countries, lasted longer. Although the unification of Italy and of ...

It emphasized the legal power of the central lawmaking agencies as opposed to the local judges. It guaranteed the influence of ...

connection between the law and the spirit of the people would be lost. Therefore, codification should be preceded by historical ...

The Golden Rule; Purposive or Teleological Interpretation When an inter- preter looks at the purpose of a rule, he may revert to ...

input in making the codification. The creation of law is, from this viewpoint, firstly a political process. Countries that belon ...

Examples of treaties with a world-wide scope are the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International ...

More about these two famous cases in Sect.10.6.4. The rules that stem from the EU do not only bind the Member States but also th ...

summarily be characterized as law that is not made or not enforced by national states or that is not meant for the regulation of ...

Sources of Law 2 Jaap Hage The question whether a particular rule is also a legal rule can have a large practical importance bec ...

of law, and this means simply that part of the law exists (or existed) in the form of customary law. Rationalist Law Other parts ...

considered to be binding, but are nevertheless treated as law. Because precedents are in fact treated as law, they are a source ...

In that case, a rule exists and is valid if it was made by Parliament. Another example would be that a rule was created by means ...

The legislator has used its power to create statutes, and these statutes contain both rules that guide behavior and rules that e ...

2.2.4 The Sources Thesis Institutional rules are rules that exist (are valid) because they were created by a person or a body th ...

competence to do so. Let us call such an institution or person a “legislator.” The competenceof a legislator is always confined ...

These “sub-states” are called “states” (USA),L€ander(Germany), orgewesten(Belgium). Federations are discussed more extensively i ...