Introducing Law & Perspectives on Law Flashcards
INSTITUTION
Anything that constrains, guides, or shapes patterned human behavior
POLITICS
The practices and processes of power relations
SOCIETY
- A web of ordered, patterned relationships that connect individuals
- Includes institutions and their relationships
- Has an inextricable relationship with ‘law’
LAW
The set of rules and regulations governing a society
DEFINITIONS OF LAW CENTER AROUND:
i) Formal rules of conduct (binding and enforceable)
ii) The involvement of politics
iii) The balancing of individual and collective interests
iv) Establishing social order
v) Limiting the arbitrary use of power
THE MAIN IDEA OF JUSTICE
i) legal fairness
ii) legal equality
iii) legal rights
iv) punishing legal wrongs
DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE
Concerned with the fair distribution of resources
RESTORATIVE JUSTICE
Focuses on repairing harm caused by criminal behavior through reconciliation
THEORIES MAKE CLAIMS THAT ARE BOTH:
Empirical (based on facts and observations, informative)
Normative (based on values)
NATURAL LAW
- Belief in universal, absolute law (from God or an external source)
- Lex injusta non est lex (an unjust law is no law at all)
- Part of Canadian Charter and international human rights law
POSITIVSM
- Law is what it ‘is,’ not what it ‘should be’
- Posited, human-made laws; sovereignty of the state gives law its validity
- Originates from British parliamentary supremacy
LEGAL REALISM
Law is shaped by political, economic, and social factors
MARXISM
Law is seen as a tool of capitalism
Protects the economic elite class
CRITICAL LEGAL THEORY
- Critical of the rationales, purposes, and assumptions of law and legal theories
- Views power as embedded within legal systems
- Arose as a challenge to positivism
- Influenced by Marxism
FEMINST THEORY OF LAW
Understands law from a gendered perspective
Laws serve to reinforce male power and female subordination
CARTER V CANADA
This case pertains to rights to medically assisted dying
BOYD
Realist analysis of law is like ‘grand-style judging’
COMPARISON AND DIFFERENCES OF POSITIVISM AND LEGAL REALISM
Like positivism, focuses on law ‘as is’ rather than ‘as it ought to be’
Unlike positivism, focuses on the human influences of law
FIRST WAVE FEMINISM
legal rights and suffrage
SECOND WAVE FEMINISM
Social and cultural inequalities
THIRD WAVE FEMINISM
Intersectionality and diverse perspectives
AGENT
individuals/entities that have the capacity to act/make decisions
Active participants who influence/shape outcomes within a system
(citizens, politicians, judges, social movements, political parties, corporations)
INSTRUMENTAL POWER
Direct use of power to influence outcomes
STRUCTURAL POWER
Power embedded within institutions and frameworks
IDEOLOGICAL POWER
Power through control over ideas and beliefs
LAW AND POLITICS
- Law and politics shape and influence each other
- Laws either support or challenge existing societal power structures
- Law can prevent the state’s abuse of power
- Law shapes a country’s political institutions
- Law can adjudicate political problems
- The ‘rule of law’ is a central component of modern states
