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31 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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According to Black's Law Dictionary, what is law? |
A body of rules of action or conduct prescribed by controlling authority, and having binding legal force. That much be interested and followed by citizens subject to sanctions or legal consequences is a law. |
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In a nation, what 6 functions does a law serve? |
1. Keep the peace 2. Maintain the status quo 3. Preserve individual rights 4. Protect minorities against majorities 5. Promote social justice 6. Provide for orderly social change |
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What are nation-states? |
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What is jurisprudence? |
The philosophy of law. There are many philosophies of law and this many different jurisprudential views. |
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What is legal positivism? |
A jurisprudence that focuses on the law as it is, the command of the sovereign. |
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What is natural law? |
A jurisprudence that emphasizes a law that transcends positive laws (human laws) and points to a set of principals that are universal in application. |
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What is a sovereign? |
The authority within any nation state. Sovereignty is what sovereigns exercise. This usually means the power to make and enforce laws within the nation state. |
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What are statutes? |
Legislative directives, having the form of general rules that are to be followed in the nation states or its subdivisions. Statutes are controlling over judicial decisions or common law, but are inferior to (and controlled by) constitutional law. |
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What two ways are used to examine a statute? |
Examining in a precise way what the rule itself says, sometimes known as the "positivist" school of legal thought. Second approach relies on the social context and the actual behavior of the principal actors who e enforce the law, akin to the "legal realist" school of thought. |
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What does the critical legal studies (CLS) school thought believe? |
That social order and the law is dominated by those with power, wealth, and influence. Some Crits are clearly influenced by the economist Karl Marx and also by the distributive justice theory. The CLS believe the wealthy have historically oppressed or exploited those with less wealth and have maintained social control through law. |
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Define the ecofeminist school of legal thought. |
Ecofeminists would say that male ownership of land has led to a dominator culture in which man is not so much a steward of the existing environment or those subordinate to him but is charged with making all t that he controls economically productive. Wives, children, land, and animals are valued as economic resources, and legal systems largely conferred rights only to men with land. |
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What do laws attempt to do? |
At a minimum, they aim to curb the worst kind of wrongs, the kinds of wrongs that violate what might be called the moral minimums that a community demands of its members. |
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What is a precedent? |
A prior judicial decision that is either binding or persuasive, and as such, provides a rule useful in making a decision in the case at hand. |
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What is stare decisis? STAR-ay-de-SIGH-sus |
Latin for "let it stand", by keeping within the rule of a prior judicial decision, a court follows "precedent" by letting the prior decision govern the result in the case at hand. |
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Judicial decisions that don't apply legislative acts will involve what areas of law? |
Property, contract, and tort law. |
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What does property laws deal with? |
The rights and duties of those who can legally own land, how that ownership can be legally confirmed and protected, how property can be bought and sold, what the rights of tenants are, and what the various kinds of estates in land are. |
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What does contract law involve? |
Deals with what kinds of promises goes should enforce. |
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What does tort law deal with? |
Types of cases that involve some kind of harm and or injury between the plaintiff and the defendant when no contract exists. |
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Define civil law |
The law that governs non criminal disputes, such as in lawsuits over contract disputes and tort claims. |
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Define criminal law |
That body of law in any nation state that defines offenses against society as a whole, punishable by fines, forfeiture, or imprisonment. |
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What are substance laws? |
Rules of conduct or behavior that is called for or some action that is prohibited. They tell us how to act with one another and with the government. |
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What are procedural laws? |
Rules of courts and administrative agencies. They tell us how to proceed if tiger is a substantive law problem. |
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What are the main sources of law? |
The constitution, both state and federal. Statutes and agency regulations. Judicial decisions. Additionally, executive orders. |
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What are nation sources of law in the international legal system? |
Treaties and customary international law. |
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What is a treaty? |
A formal agreement concluded between nation states. |
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What is a constitution? |
The founding document of any nation state's legal system. |
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What is common law? |
Judicial decisions that do not involve interpretation of statutes, regulations, treaties, or the Constitution. |
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What is the priority of laws? |
Constitution, statutes and treaties |
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What is the only wrong that can be righted in court? |
Causes of action |
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Define causes of action |
In a complaint, a legal basis on which a claim is predicated. The legal basis can be a Constitutional law, a statute, a regulation, or a prior judicial decision that creates a precedent to be followed. |
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What is de minimis non curat lex? |
The law does not deal with trifles, not every wrong will be cause to bring to court. |
