Chapter 1: Intro To Legal Heritage

Question 1

What is law?

Answer 1

a body of rules of action or conduct prescribed by controlling authority and having binding legal force. That which must be obeyed and followed by citizens subject to sanctions or legal consequences to law.

Question 2

Difference between moral rules of conduct vs rules of law?

Answer 2

difference consists in the presence of a well established sanction that comes when breaking the later.

Question 3

What are social conduct rules (def)?

Answer 3

govern our existence giving meaning to it through order thus society functions the right way.

Question 4

What are the functions of law?

Answer 4

-Keeping social peace (making stuff crimes)
-Shaping moral standards (law discouraging drugs and alcohol)
-Promoting social justice (prohibit discrimination in employment)
-Maintaining the status quo (laws that prevent forceful overthrow of government)
-Fascilitating orderly change (laws applied only after proper deliberation)
-Fascilitating planning (eg: well designed commercial laws that help businesses with planning)

Question 5

Is law fair?

Answer 5

law is in general fair and democratic BUT sometimes mistakes be happening where bad people go unpunished, these are exceptions and mistakes that can be corrected.

Question 6

How flexible is law?

Answer 6

law is ever changing as it evolves along with society and societal norms, it deals with human relations and their most complex aspects so how could it not evolve.

Question 7

What are school of jurisprudential thought?

Answer 7

scientific way of perceiving law, jurisprudence is the science of law by definition.

Question 8

What is natural law school?

Answer 8

school of jurisprudence, postulates that law is based on what’s “correct” emphasising morality and ethics. It is “discovered” by human thought, reasoning used to differentiate good vs bad.

Question 9

What is historical school of jurisprudence?

Answer 9

basically bases law on social traditions/ customs developed over centuries, also it relies on past legal decisions to solve contemporary problems.

Question 10

What is analytical school of jurisprudence?

Answer 10

thinks that law is shaped by logic, places emphasis on logic of result regather than how it is achieved.

Question 11

What is sociological school of jurisprudence?

Answer 11

says that law is a means of achieving and advancing certain social rules, followers of this = realists, believe purpose of law is to shape social behaviour, they are not likely to adhere to past law.

Question 12

What is command school of jurisprudence?

Answer 12

believes that law is a set of rules developed by ruling class and that laws change when ruling class changes.

Question 13

What is critical legal studies school?

Answer 13

believe that laws are unnecessary and enforced by the powerful, they believe that legal disputes should be solved according to certain fairness rules and that judges decisions can be subjective.

Question 14

What is law and economic school? What’s it also known as?

Answer 14

also known as Chicago school, based on idea of promoting market efficiency an example given is that some components of this is that if one cant find a pro bono (contingency free) lawyer = case not worth bringing to justice.

Question 15

What type of law is Romano germanic law? Back till when does it date?

Answer 15

civil law; dates back to 450 B.C, when rome adopted the Twelve Tables (code of law applicable to romans).

Question 16

What is the 12 tables?

Answer 16

Adopted by rome, its the code applicable to romans, dated back to 450 bc.

Question 17

What is corpus juris civilis?

Answer 17

body of civil law, a compilation of roman laws; was completed in 534 A.D.

Question 18

When was the french civil code established what is it also called?

Answer 18

1804, the napoleonic code

Question 19

When was the german civil code established? How did it and the french code affect other countries?

Answer 19

1896, this and french one became models for countries that adopted civil codes

Question 20

What is civil code? And who follows it?

Answer 20

most european countries follow this, aims to deal with disputes between individuals or organisations.

Question 21

What is Anglo saxon common law? When was it developed who uses it?

Answer 21

english common law, developed by judges who issued their opinions when deciding cases, this relies on judges deciding based on precedent cases. Developed in UK after 1066, used in US, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Thailand etc.

Question 22

What is the constitution?

Answer 22

main source of law, supreme law of the land, any other law that conflicts this local or national is called unconstitutional and is unenforceable. Below are its 3 branches:
Legislative, executive and judicial

Question 23

What are the 3 branches of constitution explain them.

Answer 23

legislative branch: parliament has power to make law.
executive branch: government, president or both, has power to enforce law
judicial branch: courts + other judicial authorities, has power to interpret + determine validity of law.

Question 24

What are statues?

Answer 24

written laws that establish a certain courses of conduct that must be adhered to by the covered parties, enacted by Parliaments or by similar bodie; sometimes when a statue encompasses many rules it’s organised as a code (civil code, criminal etc).

Question 25

What are government (executive branch) ordinances?

Answer 25

state legislative sometimes deflagrates lawmaking to the government (executive branch) thus government considered sources of law, they make decisions while enforcing the laws, these decisions can be considered sources of law too.

Question 26

What are presidential executive orders?

Answer 26

in some countries including Romania, the pres can issue an executive order that can sometimes be considered a source of law.

Question 27

What are regulations and orders of administration agencies?

Answer 27

in some countries such as the US, the legislative and executive branch of federal and state govs are empowered to have administrative agencies that enforce and interpret statues enacted by legislative branch, they regulate commercial activites, they have force of law.

Question 28

What are judicial decisions?

Answer 28

based on common law tradition, past court decisions become precedents looked upon for decisions, so judicial decisions are considered a source of law in common law countries, promoting the uniformity of law and efficiency of court system, in civil court systems thats not the case, court decisions are not considered a source of law.

Question 29

Define business law.

Answer 29

basically an entire page explains that law is important in business to establish rules on how to conduct a business and that there are national laws that apply to business and only very little international laws, it is also called economic law. And although business laws do hold true in most countries there are some differences specific to each country. So to determine how to best structure a business and how to tax etc business law is imp.