Sources of Law: Understanding Legal Principles

Posted on Feb 21, 2025 in Law & Jurisprudence

Formal and Informal Sources of Law

Understanding Legal Principles

This document examines the various sources of law, with a particular focus on the Venezuelan legal system.

Key Factors and Evidence in Law

  1. All those factors … all the evidence …
    • B) Source material at large
  2. Formal sources
    • All of the above
  3. Indirect formal sources
    • B) Contains no norm, but it helps to interpret.
  4. Direct sources in Venezuela
    • As stated in Article 4 of the Civil Code.
  5. Relevant law in a material sense
    • A) Expresses its content, not the form; the contents of any rule.

Characteristics of Law in a Formal Sense

  1. What are the characteristics of the law in a formal sense?
    • Bilaterality, heteronomy, enforceability; they are written, outward, are constitutional, are standards emanating from the legislature, and are irrefutable. It is understood that against a law, there is little to do overall.

Elements and Formation of Law

  1. Element of the law:
    • The preamble to the conceptual framework, the scope, validity, part, repealed article.
  2. Complete each of the following prepositions referring to the process of law formation:
    • The act by which the project is submitted to the National Assembly provides for: infeasibility.
    • The complete act during which the National Assembly deliberates on the merits of the bill, approving or rejecting it, is the responsibility of: decision.
    • The act by which the president sets the first draft of the law and orders its publication corresponds to the: enactment.
  3. Briefly conceptualize legal custom:
    • It is an act done repeatedly within a society, on the condition that part of society believes that act is positive for the progress of society and therefore should be internalized as compulsory.

Custom, Interpretation, and Jurisprudence

  1. In the case of custom binding legal status by the person or persons who perform the intended behavior, this refers to:
    • The subjective element.
  2. The usual interpretation:
    • B) Is formed in accordance with the law.
  3. The case as a formal source of law in its current meaning refers to:
    • All of the above.
  4. The case is a formal source of general legal rule:
    • B) In U.S. common law countries.

Doctrine and its Functions

  1. All conducted scientific studies of law, purely for the purpose of systematizing, speculating, or interpreting the purpose of norms, concerns:
    • Doctrine
  2. Functions of the doctrine:
    • Analysis: Goes from the general to the particular.
    • Synthesis: Goes from the particular to the general.
    • Systematization: Relates all the elements from this process of analysis and synthesis; the particular case that one has to interpret is located within a system.
  3. When you look from a philosophical perspective, convergences, or adequacy of a legal provision to what are the purposes of the law, this corresponds to:
    • C) Criticism
  4. What is the value of doctrine as a source of law?
    • In Venezuela, it is formal, indirect, and its characteristics are independence, authority, and responsibility.

Equity and General Principles of Law

  1. The mitigation of the rigor of the law when talking about the harshness of the law against a particular case is given a longer, more flexible treatment; we are talking about:
    • Equity
  2. Functions of equity as a source of law:
    • Humanizing the case, adapting the rule to the particularity of this case.
  3. General principles of law are a source of law fundamentally because of our legislation:
    • Our legislation gives the general principles, according to Article 4 of the Civil Code, the character of an indirect, subsidiary source that will feature in the interpretation of the rule or standard training.