Politics quiz Pt. 2 Flashcards
(38 cards)
define law
A rule of human conduct that is enforced by the community by coercion, if necessary.
What are the 4 features the law provides?
- Restraint
- Retribution
- Restitution
- Rehabilitation
Define Restraint
- For those ppl or inds who do not respect the authority of gout and are not influenced by it to follow the law… For them there is coercion.
- Those inds restrain their impulses to break the law and follow it instead.
define retribution (FAFO: fuck around and find out)
- Punishment for the rule break
define restitution
- Compensation for those harmed by the rule break
define rehabilitation
- A change in behaviour on the part of the rule breaker, to prevent future rule breaking.
What are the 2 general forms of law?
- Customary/evolutionary law - arises gradually and it’s creation cannot be fixed in time (unconscious creation).
- Legislation - reflects the conscious creation law
Define customary (evolutionary) law, why are these rules developed and how are they promoted?
- all communities have rules they follow and that these rules are enforced, even if they may not necessarily be written down.
- These rules developed in response to challenges in the community.
- These rules promoted internal cohesion and that resulted in external strength.
- the rules are often ascribed to divine origin.
- Eventually, these rules are written down (this is recording law, not creating it).
Define common law
- what’s it made up of?
- what do court rulings serve as?
- British version of customary law.
- It is made up of court rulings dating back to the middle ages.
- Court rulings serve as a guide or precedent for future cases.
- Following a path laid out by past court decisions allows the law to grow in an orderly and predictable way.
- By studying past cases, one can gain a fair idea of how future disputes will be decided.
- the law is being discovered and uncovered with each ruling.
define legislation
- reflects conscious creation and direct control of law.
define legislature
- body that creates law (national assembly, parliament)
define legislator
- inds who serve in legislatures
What are the 2 forms legislation can take?
- Statute: deals with a specific issue (speed limits, no public smoking)
- Law code: A comprehensive set of interrelated issues (criminal code of Canada)
define the 4 things constitutionalism can do:
- Establish and assign powers to the branches of gout (executive, legislative, judiciary).
- In a federal state, the constitution will divide sovereignty (=control over specific policy areas) between 2 orders of gout (the national gout & subnational gout)
- central gout is given control over policy areas of national importance
- Subnational gout get control over issues of local importance. - Constitution will establish relations relations between citizens & gout ( ex: charter of rights and freedoms )
- It may include a process or mechanisms by which it can be modified (amended)
define constitution (supreme law)
- a set of fundamental rules and principles by which a state is organized.
define constitutional conventions (political agreements or customs) and why does it exist?
- These are elements of a constitution but they are unwritten and are not laws.
- Constitutional conventions exist for a legitimate reason and are followed by political actors.
what happens if a constitutional convention is broken? and what is the consequence?
- if a constitutional convention is broken, there is no legal punishment.
- If a conventional is then the inds. may suffer reputational damage. - consequence is enforced by the public.
what are the 2 types constitutions?
- Written constitution
- Unwritten constitution
define written constitution and give an example
- constitution exists as a single deliberately crafted document (that was written or created at a specific moment in time).
- it is very difficult to change via the amending process.
- it is comprehensive in scope.
- Ex: U.S.
define unwritten constitution and give an example
- A collection of conventions and statues that, taken together, are viewed as being the constitution.
- statutes may be enacted at different times (like the bill of rights of 1689)
- Very easy to change (in theory)
define constitutionalism (limited state) also say what it would be like in a democracy and a dictatorship.
- idea that gout is not the absolute controlling source of society but rather it is a tool that society uses.
- Democracy: constitution controls the gout
- Dictatorship: gout controls/is above the constitution
define what a Judicial Review
- the courts, if called upon, can determine wether the gout actions or laws conform w/ the constitution.
- If the courts rule that it does not, they can strike it down.
what is the international system based on?
our understanding of states.
what’s the correlation to the treaty of westphalia (1649)
- it indirectly established the foundations of the modern state system.