Jurisprudence- its Origin &
Theories
INTRODUCTION
HISTORY OF JURISPRUDENCE
Ghrtgjnr2jm2rq2rqwThe Strong Natural Law Thesis holds that if a human
law fails to be backed up by decisive reasons, then it is not properly called
a “law” at all. This is captureing of the morality enacted as law, not the
laws themselves. The passage here is silent as to that
question.8e67i46cfhlcbo03asdv
wThe most important questions of analytic jurisprudence are: “What are
laws?”; “What is thelaw?”; “What is the relationship between law and
power/sociology?”; and “What is the relationship between law and
morality?” Legal positivism is the dominant theory, although there are a
growing number of critics who offer their owdfbhfgustin was the first chair
of law at the new University of London from 1829. Austin’s utilitarian
answer to “what is law?” was that law is “commands, backed by the threat
of sanctions, from a sovereign, to whom people have a habit of
obedience”. Contemporary legal positivists have long abandoned this
view, , H. L. A. Hart particularly.
Hans Kelsenethq
Hans Kelsen is considered one of the prominent jurists of the 20th century
and has been highly influential in Europe and Latin America, although less
so in common-law countries. His Pure Theory of Law aims to describe the
law as binding norms while at the same time refusing, itself, to evaluate
those norms. That is, ‘legal science’ is to be separated from ‘legal politics’.
Central to the Pure Theory of Law is the notion of a ‘basic norm
(Grundnorm)’—a hypothetical norm, presupposed by the jurist, from which
in a hierarchy all ‘lower’ norms in a legal system, beginning with
constitutional law, are understood to derive their authority or
‘bindingness’. In this way, Kelsen contends, the bindingness of legal
norms, their specifically ‘legal’ character, can be understood without
tracing it ultimately to some suprahuman source such as God, personified
Nature or—of great importance in his time—a personified State or Nation.
1. L. A. Hart
In the Anglophone world, the pivotal writer was H. L. A. Hart, who argued
that the law should be understood as a system of social rules. Hart
rejected Kelsen’s views that sanctions were essential to law and that a
