This version of the course guide is provisional until the period for editing the new course guides ends.

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Theory of Law

Code: 102267 ECTS Credits: 6
2024/2025
Degree Type Year
2500786 Law FB 1

Contact

Name:
Marc Abraham Puig Hernandez
Email:
marcabraham.puig@uab.cat

Teachers

Lucia Ortiz Amaro
Noelia Igareda Gonzalez
Patricia Fernanda Gonzalez Prado
Luisa Pilar Moreno Cuerva
Esther Murillo Blasco
Marc Abraham Puig Hernandez
Bárbara Lirios Monllor Taltavull
Maria Barcons Campmajo
(External) Ana Lucia Correia

Teaching groups languages

You can view this information at the end of this document.


Prerequisites

To be able to follow the subject, it is essential to have optimal linguistic and reading competence in accordance with the level of university studies. Basic knowledge of philosophy and sociology will help to follow the subject.

The teaching of the subject is given taking into account the perspective of the Sustainable Development Goals.

 

Grup 1. Lectures: Patricia González (spanish)

Seminar 11: Bárbara Monllor (catalan)

Seminar 12: Patricia González (spanish)

Seminar 13: Esther Murillo (spanish)

 

Grupo 2. Lectures: Maria Barcons (catalan)

Seminar 21: Ana Correia (spanish)

Seminar 22: Maria Barcons (catalan)

Seminar 23: Esther Murillo (spanish)

 

Grup 3. Lectures: Noelia Igareda (spanish)

Seminar 31: Marc Puig (catalan)

Seminar 32: Nelia Igareda (spanish)

Seminar 33: Martí Colom (catalan)

 

Grupo 51. Lectures: Luisa Moreno (spanish)

Seminar 511: Marc Puig (catalan)

Seminar 512: Luisa Moreno (spanish)

 

Grupo 70. Lectures: Marc-Abraham Puig (catalan)

Seminar 70: Martí Colom (catalan)

Seminar 71: Marc-Abraham Puig (catalan)

Seminar 72: Bárbara Monllor (catalan)


Objectives and Contextualisation

Theory of Law is a subject that is taught in the first four months of the first year of the degree of Law. It is an introductory course to basic legal concepts for the development of all subjects. The subject develops the great areas of contemporary law theory, starting from the plurality of schools and visions that form the theory and philosophy of modern law.

The major areas that arise in the program are:

The forms of approach to law: law science, sociology and philosophy of law.

Theory of the norm and the legal order.

Application and interpretation of the law.

Values of rights and theories of justice

Fundamentals of the sociology of law.

The main training objectives of the subject are:

Know the main forms of approach to law from the science of law, sociology of law and philosophy of law

Identify, know and apply the basic concepts of the theory of law.

Understand the fundamentals of legal argumentation.

Reflect on the values and functions of law

Understand the formation of contemporary legal concepts in their historical and social context.

 

 


Competences

  • Applying ethical values and principles associated with the professional practice of law.
  • Arguing and laying the foundation for the implementation of legal standards.
  • Defend and promote the basic values of coexistence in democracy.
  • Defending and promoting the essential values of the social and democratic State of Law.
  • Demonstrating a sensible and critical reasoning: analysis, synthesis, conclusions.
  • Identifying, knowing and applying the basic and general principles of the legal system.
  • Integrating the importance of Law as a regulatory system of social relations.
  • Present information in a way that is appropriate to the type of audience.
  • Properly analysing the issues related to equality between men and women.
  • Students must be capable of communicating their points of view in a compelling way.
  • Students must be capable of demonstrating a critical awareness of the analysis of the legal system and development of legal dialectics.
  • Students must be capable of demonstrating the unitary nature of the legal system and of the necessary interdisciplinary view of legal problems.
  • Students must be capable of perceiving the impact and implications of the decisions taken.
  • Students must be capable of producing initiative, creative and innovative knowledge, as well as new ideas.
  • Students must be effective in a changing environment and when facing new tasks, responsibilities or people.
  • Working in multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary fields.
  • Working in teams, being either a member or a coordinator of working groups, as well as making decisions affecting the whole group.

Learning Outcomes

  1. Defend and promote the basic values of coexistence in democracy.
  2. Defining the importance of the legal deontology.
  3. Defining the jusnaturalist (natural law), positivist, and realist legal theories and its view on the unitary nature of the legal system.
  4. Defining the legal instruments oriented to eradicate social inequality between men and women.
  5. Defining the main basic principles of the legal system.
  6. Defining the relationships between law and morals in the social and democratic state of law.
  7. Demonstrating a sensible and critical reasoning: analysis, synthesis, conclusions.
  8. Describing the different critical contributions to the theory of Law.
  9. Describing the law-society relationships.
  10. Distinguishing the theories and necessary concepts for the analysis of the inequality between men and women.
  11. Enumerating the different contemporary theories of the legal reasoning.
  12. Identifying the contemporary deontological problems.
  13. Identifying the problems of law implementation.
  14. Identifying the sexual discrimination factors in law.
  15. Identifying the socio-legal problems in the current socio-legal theories.
  16. Identifying the values of the social and democratic state of law.
  17. Interpreting the contributions of the sociology of law.
  18. Interpreting the evolution of the social and democratic state of law.
  19. Present information in a way that is appropriate to the type of audience.
  20. Producing theoretical discussions about the role of the principles in the legal system.
  21. Students must be capable of communicating their points of view in a compelling way.
  22. Students must be capable of perceiving the impact and implications of the decisions taken.
  23. Students must be capable of producing initiative, creative and innovative knowledge, as well as new ideas.
  24. Students must be effective in a changing environment and when facing new tasks, responsibilities or people.
  25. Working in multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary fields.
  26. Working in teams, being either a member or a coordinator of working groups, as well as making decisions affecting the whole group.

Content

1. Ways to approach the Law: Jurisprudence, Sociology of Law and Legal Philosophy.

2. Law and Morals.

3. Law and society.

4. Law, power, and State

5. Determination of the Law: Nautral Law, Legal Positivism, and Legal Realism.

6. Theory of the norm.

7. Legal system.

8. Sources of Law.

9. Fundamental legal conceptions.

10. Legal interpretation.

11. The application of Law.

12. Legal argumentation.


Activities and Methodology

Title Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Type: Directed      
Seminars 22 0.88 10, 14, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17
Theoretical classes 22 0.88 4, 5, 2, 6, 3, 8, 9, 20, 11, 16, 18, 17
Type: Autonomous      
Individual works 36 1.44 21, 24, 7, 23, 22
Reading and study of materials 45 1.8 12, 13, 15, 16, 18, 17
Teamwork 20 0.8 21, 24, 23, 22, 26, 25

Attendance at seminars, except in some case of justified reason, will be compulsory for students

The teaching of the subject and the training of students is based on the following activities:
 
1. Directed activities:
 
1.1 Lectures: where the students reach the conceptual bases of the subject and its normative and jurisprudential legal framework. The master classes are the activities in which less interactivity is required of the student and are conceived as an exhibition to establish the conceptual references in each subject.
 
1.2. Seminars: where the students, in small groups, analyze together with the teachers practical cases previously prepared. In specific cases, cases will be developed in class. The basis of practical work is the understanding and application of the concepts explained in the theoretical classes.
 
2. Supervised activities:
 
These are activities that the students develop in the classroom, with the supervision and help of the teaching staff. It is about the elaboration of some practical assumption in the classroom.
 
3. Autonomous activities:
 
Preparation of documents of practical activities: that will be delivered and analyzed in the classroom.
 
Search of bibliography and instrumental materials for the resolution of practical cases. In some or some cases students must perform the autonomous search of the documentation

Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.


Assessment

Continous Assessment Activities

Title Weighting Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Evaluation tests 50% 5 0.2 4, 5, 2, 6, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10, 20, 11, 16, 18
Individual and teamwork 50% 0 0 21, 1, 4, 24, 7, 10, 14, 12, 13, 15, 18, 17, 19, 23, 22, 26, 25

Students who copy or try to copy an exam will receive a grade of 0 in that test. Who submits a practice with plagiarism will get a 0 and receive a warning. In case of reoccurrence of the behaviour, the subject will be suspended.

 Each teaching group will publish the specific date or week for carrying out the assessable activities on the Virtual Campus before the start of teaching. However, in exceptional circumstances and due to force majeure, these dates or weeks may be modified.

Students will be assessable as long as they have completed a set of activities whose weight is equivalent to a minimum of 2/3 of the total grade for the subject. If the value of the activities carried out does not reach this threshold, the subject teacher may consider the student as "non-evaluable".

 The final grade will be obtained from the following elements:

 1.1 Continuous evaluation of the classes. (50% of the note)

 Attendance at seminars, based on just cause assumptions, will be mandatory for students.

1st Seminar test 25%.

2nd Seminar test 25%.

 1.2 Final exam. (50% of the note)

 The final exam must be passed with a mark higher than 5 to average with the rest of the qualifications of the continuous evaluation.

 

 Single Assessment (Guidelines)

First Activity (25%). Reading comprehension.

Second Activity (25%). Essay question.

Common activity (50% of the note). Same task as final exam.

The same "non-evaluable" criterion will be applied as for the continuous evaluation.

 

 Re-evaluation

 There will be a re-evaluation of the part related to the final exam. For single assessment students, the same re-evaluation system will be applied as for continuous assessment.

Themaximum grade in the re-evaluation cannot be higher than 6.


Bibliography

COURSEBOOK

AÑON, M.José, et. al. (2021). Teoría del Derecho (3rd ed.), Tirant lo Blanch (electronic edition available at the UAB Library).

 

FURTHER READING

ATIENZA, M. (2012). El sentido del derecho (2nd ed.), Ariel.

ATIENZA, M. (2017). Filosofía del Derecho y transformación social, Trotta.

ATIENZA, M. (2015), El Derecho como argumentación, Ariel.

CASANOVAS, P. (2017). Sub lege Pugnamus. De la Gran Guerra a les grans dades. Pubicacions de la Universitat de Barcelona.

CASANOVAS, P. & MORESO, J.J. (2020). El ámbito de lo jurídico. Lecturas de pensamiento jurídico contemporáneo. Ed. Olejnik.

CALVO GARCÍA, M. (2000). Teoría del Derecho (2nd ed.), Technos.

CALVO GARCÍA, M. & PICONTÓ, T. (2017). Introducción y perspectivas actuales de la sociología jurídica, Editorial UOC.

DE LUCAS, J. (coord) (1997). Introducció a la teoria del dret (3rd ed.), Tirant lo Blanc.

DWORKING, R. (2012), Los derechos en serio, Ariel.

DE SOUSA SANTOS, B. (2009). Sociología jurídica crítica. Para un nuevo sentido común en el derecho, Trotta.

FALCÓN Y TELLA, M.J. (2023). Lecciones de Teoría del Derecho (2a ed.), Tirant lo Blanch.

FREEMAN, M. D. A. (2011). Lloyd’s introduction to jurisprudence (8th ed., Repr.), Sweet & Maxwell.

MORESO, J. J. & VILAJOSANA, J. M. (2004). Introduccion a la teoria del derecho. Marcial Pons.

PUIGPELAT, F., (Coord.) (1996). Teoria del dret, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya.

RIDDALL, J. G. (2008). Teoría del Derecho. Gedisa.

RODRIGUEZ, PALOP, M. E. (2010), La nueva generación de derechos Humanos, Dykinson.

RUIZ RESA, J. (2017). Teoría del derecho. Tirant lo Blanc: València (electronic edition available at the UAB Library).


Software

The subject does not requiere any specific software


Language list

Name Group Language Semester Turn
(TE) Theory 1 Spanish first semester morning-mixed
(TE) Theory 2 Catalan first semester morning-mixed
(TE) Theory 3 Spanish first semester morning-mixed
(TE) Theory 51 Spanish first semester afternoon
(TE) Theory 70 Catalan first semester morning-mixed