Saint-Louis University - Bruxelles
|

DRNL1130 - Seminaire on the Sources and Principles of Law



Credits : 4

Lecturer :
Mode of delivery :
Face-to-face , second term, 30 hours of exercises.

Timetable :
Second term
Thursday from 13:30 to 15:30 at 43 Botanique 6

Language of instruction :
French


Learning outcomes :
Following the first-term course Inleiding tot de Rechtswetenschap, this seminar aims at offering students an overview of the legal phenomenon and provide them with the basic skills and methods required for the their legal further curriculum.

At the end of the course students will be able
¥ to define a range of basic legal concepts (objective law, subjective law, ‘juridicité', justiciability, direct effect, direct applicability, legal personality, norm, law, regulation, res judicata and so on);
¥ To describe and to identify the different legal orders, to set out their relationships and interactions, to list their constitutive norms and sources and to discuss the main principles supposed to ensure their coherence.
To this end, the seminar focuses on legal terminology learning and gradually familiarizes students with the standards of precision required by legal reasoning (through the study of legislation, case law and examples)

Prerequisites :
None

Co-requisites :
Course contents :
The seminar studies the following topics:

Introduction: description of the subject and the methods of the seminar ; Introduction to legal terminology, to the characteristics of the regal rule and to the various meanings of the notion of “law”.

Part I - Legal orders: national legal orders (the Belgian legal order; legal families, introduction to comparative law); the international legal order (Overview, UN, Council of Europe, European Union)

Part II - The relationship between legal orders (Legal Monism, Legal Dualism, Legal Pluralism ; Direct applicability, Direct effect, Primacy)

Part III - Introduction to the Belgian judicial system and to Belgian civil procedure law (Judicial power ; Scope and sources of Belgian civil procedural law, the judge ; the proceedings)

Planned learning activities and teaching methods :
Lectures
Lecturers are available to answer all students' questions.


Assessment methods and criteria :
The examination is based on, and only on, material discussed during lectures (whether or not the material studied is indicated on the course syllabus). Any substantive points appearing on the syllabus but not studied in class together will not feature on the examination.

The oral examination lasts 15 minutes per student. Students select a card with two questions and are allowed to prepare for the exam for 15 minutes. 

Recommended or required reading :
None

Other information :
Students are provided with a course syllabus and syllabus of appendixes (case-law, legislation, …) and are invited to supplement them with their written notes taken during lectures