The teaching unit "Sources, Principles and Methods of Law - II" aims to train the students of the Bachelor of Law in staggered timetable to understand the specificity of legal norms, how they are created and applied over time, as well as to have a critical look at them throughout their academic and professional career
At the end of this course, students should be able to • understand the specificity of the rule of law in relation to other normative systems and the ways in which it can interact with them; • distinguish between the various regulatory instruments according to their binding nature (soft law, hard law, etc.) and their authority in relation to other texts (primacy and direct effect of international standards, imperative/supplementary nature of internal standards in relation to private legal acts, etc.); • outline the process of developing the standard ; • to look critically at the legislative work ; • read and understand a judicial decision by distinguishing its different headings; • be familiar with the different methods and guidelines for interpreting legislation, as used in case law, and when reading a court decision, identify the method(s) used.
In order to achieve the above objectives, the course is, after an introduction, divided into five chapters: • Specificity and attempt to define the rule of law • The procedure for drafting the law and its application • Sources of law: elements of legal methodology • The authority of legal rules • The interpretation of legal rules
The evaluation takes the form of a written examination for the different sessions. The aim is to test the students' mastery of the fundamental notions studied and the practical exercises, on the one hand, and to test their ability to carry out research in the Code, on the other. The exam requires skills in memorization, manipulation of legal texts, reasoning, thinking, writing and application of the material. Students must be able to • Restate the elements of theory. • Apply these elements of theory in practice, particularly in the context of solving a case. • Finding information in legislative instruments. • Summarise, with precise and adequate vocabulary, the case law seen in the course. • Use legal vocabulary appropriately. • Write a clear, precise and complete (and linguistically correct) answer. • Compare two concepts. • Fill in the relevant legal basis whenever it exists.
• The syllabus • The slides available on Webcampus. • The cases analysed in the course available on Webcampus