5. Legal Science in Introduction to Law Courses

Why do we not have an introductory course like this one required of every student?

• Preliminary notions: the legal order
• legal norms to govern relationships among citizens
• positive, as distinguished from natural law
• objective law and subjective right derived from objective law
• organs and institutions for enforcement (imposition of sanctions)
• state threatens sanction if norm is not followed
• norm is general, state compares concrete facts to norm and if they correspond, state applies prescribed consequences
• "General Part" of the civil law
• public law vs. private law
• imperative vs. dispositive norms
• sources of law (statutes, regulations, custom)
• the legal relation (Rechstverhältnis)
• produces [legal] effects [presumptively] only on the parties, in private law
• "subjective right" = interest of party benefitting from legal relation
• primacy of intention, power to act in one's own interest (19^th C. liberalism!)
• freedom of right-holder limited by concept of abuse
• absolute rights (e.g., ownership of a thing, real rights) vs. relative rights (personal rights)
• manner of acquisition of subjective rights (original or derivative title)
• subjects: persons (natural or legal)
• the juridical act (Rechtsgeschäft)
• explicit in German Civil Code, developed by interpretation in others (E.g., French)
• licit vs. illicit acts
• operations vs. declarations
• juridical act = declaration(s) of intention directed toward legal effects
• types of juridical act: unilateral/multilateral, gratuitous/onerous, etc.
• Key provisions of the German Civil Code concerning declarations of intention, p. 502: when is a declaration of intention void or voidable?