Introduction to Law
Code: 103499 ECTS Credits: 6| Degree | Type | Year |
|---|---|---|
| 2500257 Criminology | FB | 1 |
Contact
- Name:
- Marc Abraham Puig Hernandez
- Email:
- marcabraham.puig@uab.cat
Teachers
- Rocio Medina Martin
- Ana Lucia Correia Da Costa
Teaching groups languages
You can view this information at the end of this document.
Prerequisites
In order to follow the subject properly, it is essential to have optimal linguistic and reading competence according to the level of university studies. Lectures will be taught taking into account the perspective of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Languages: lectures (Spanish); semiar 11 (Spanish); seminari 12 (Spanish).
Objectives and Contextualisation
To give students the basic tools to understand the world of Law based on the exposure and analysis of different perspectives and approaches. Propose the analysis of law and other regulatory systems and the relationship they have with the State, society, human rights, and ethical principles.
Competences
- Ability to analyse and summarise.
- Drawing up an academic text.
- Properly using the legal, psychological, pedagogical and sociological language.
- Respectfully interacting with other people.
- Students must demonstrate they know the legal framework and operating model of the crime control agents.
- Students must demonstrate they know the legal/penal response framework to criminality (constitutional law, police law, procedural law and criminal law).
- Verbally transmitting ideas to an audience.
- Working autonomously.
Learning Outcomes
- Ability to analyse and summarise.
- Drawing up an academic text.
- Drawing up legal texts using specific language.
- Explaining the latest functionality criteria in the application of constitutional law to the criminal act.
- Knowing the legal vocabulary.
- Matching the criminal law corpus with its implementation in the criminological field.
- Respectfully interacting with other people.
- Verbally transmitting ideas to an audience.
- Working autonomously.
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: Natural 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 | |||
| Lectures | 19.5 | 0.78 | 5, 6, 4 |
| Seminars | 19.5 | 0.78 | 5, 6, 4, 3, 7, 1, 8 |
| Type: Autonomous | |||
| Group research project | 20 | 0.8 | 6, 3, 2, 7 |
| Preparatory work for seminar exercices | 40 | 1.6 | 5, 6, 4, 3, 2, 1, 9 |
| Preparing for tests | 46 | 1.84 | 5, 2, 1, 9 |
The instruction and training of the students is based on the following activities:
1. Directed activities:
1.1 Lectures: where students learn the conceptual bases of the subject and learn the regulatory and jurisprudential legal framework. Lectures are the activities in which less interactivity is required of the student and are designed as an exhibition to establish the conceptual references in each topic.
1.2. Seminars: where the students, in small groups, analyse previously prepared practical cases together with the teaching staff. In specific cases, the cases will be worked out in class. The basis of the practical work is the understanding and application of the concepts explained in the theoretical classes.
1.3. Assessment: continuous assessment activities and final exam
2. Supervised activities:
These are activities that the students develop in the classroom, with the supervision and support of the teaching staff. It is about the preparation of some practical case in the classroom.
3. Independent activities:
3.1. Preparation of practical activity documents: which will be delivered and analysed in the classroom.
3.2. Search for bibliography and instrumental materials for the resolution of practical cases. In some cases, students will have to search for the documentation independently
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Attendance and participation in class | 10 | 2.5 | 0.1 | 5, 3, 2, 7, 1, 8, 9 |
| Essays | 40 | 0 | 0 | 5, 7, 1, 8, 9 |
| Exam | 50 | 2.5 | 0.1 | 5, 6, 4, 3, 2, 1, 8, 9 |
1. Model of evaluation.
80% attendance is a condition to pass the subject.
The continuous evaluation of the subject is carried out by accounting for: exam grades (50%), practical exercises (40%), and attendance and participation in the classroom (10%).
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 not assessable.
2. Exam. The final exam (shared by a single assessment and continuous evaluation) will consist of two exercises:
- Multiple-choice exam. The minimum score for this part is 5/10.
- Open questions. Students will be required to develop, at a minimum, two reasoned answers to two previous questions.
That is, only those students who obtain the minimum score in each part will pass the exam. To pass the exam, the final grade of the test must be at least 5.
The final grade will be obtained from the mean of the two exercises.
3. Re-evaluation.
Students who do not pass the continuous assessment or do not pass the final exam will have the opportunity to re-evaluate on a second exam date. This second exam will have the same formal and assessment conditions explained for the first exam.
The same recovery system will be applied to single assessment students as for continuous assessment.
4. Consequences of fraud. A student who cheats or attempts to cheat at the exam will get a 0, losing the right to a second chance. Plagiarism in an assignment will result in the suspension of the assignment, recidivism in the subject, and the loss of the right to re-evaluation.
If a student copies or tries to copy in the exam, they will fail the subject with a 0 and lose the right to re-evaluation. Plagiarism in an assignment will result in the suspension of the assignment, recidivism in the subject, and the loss of the right to re-evaluation. However, use tools like ChatGPT or something similar.
5. Punctuality.
Classes start on time. It is not allowed to enter the class once it has started or to leave before its completion, except with reasonable justification.
6. Essays.
The practices carried out in the seminars will be done collectively during the sessions specifically planned within the framework of the topics contained in the subject's program.
These practices involve continuous work by the students. Foreach seminar, the materials that the students will have to work on beforehand through the Virtual Campus will be provided in advance.
Students will have to hand in two individual practice papers:
- Afirst task is a written and individual analysis exercise on one of the practice topics discussed during the seminar sessions. This exercise must be passed with a 5 out of 10. Students who do not pass this mandatory minimum grade can reassess the practical part through a specific question in the final exam on one of the topics coveredin the seminar.
- A second exercise that will be carried out collectively will consist of: i) a group debate on one of the topics proposed by the teachers. An internal debating league and a final debating phase will be held and organized. Each group will have to defend a specific position on one of the proposed topics; ii) presentation by discussion groups of the conclusions of one of the topics discussed during the internal and final phases.
Written works in which an inappropriate use of quotes and texts is detected, plagiarism, or which cannot justify arguments used in their practice, will be evaluated with a grade of 0 and will receive a warning. In case of repetition of the conduct, the student will suspend the subject (0) and will lose the right to re-evaluate.
7. Attendance.
Since class attendance is mandatory, participation requires, firstly, that the student has attended all classes, unless there is adequate justification. Students who do not attend at least 80% of the classes cannot be assessed. Absences can only be justified for reasons of illness or other force majeure and for academic reasons previously authorized by the teaching staff.
In addition, the attitude of the students and their active participation in the development of the classes will be assessed.
Students who repeatedly will be warned by the teaching staff for not keeping quiet during classes or maintaining an attitude that involves interruptions and inconveniences for the normal development of classes may be penalized with a reduction in their final grade resulting from the three previous sections.
8. Schedule of activities.
On the first day of the course, students will have available (in the subject space on the Campus Virtual) a schedule of the theoretical and practical activities to be carried out during the course, which will be organized weekly.
9. The single assessment will consist of a first activity (25%), a second activity (25%), and a common activity, identical to the final continuous assessment exam (50%). The test must be repaired with the obligatory bibliography of the subject.
In the case of a single assessment, the same non-evaluable criterion will be applied as for the continuous assessment.
Bibliography
Compulsory reading
Añón, M. José, et. al. (2021). Teoría del derecho (2a ed.). Tirant lo Blanch.
Further reading
Atienza, M. (2012). El sentido del derecho (2a 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. Publicacions 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 (2a ed.). Tecnos.
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 (3a ed.). Tirant lo Blanc.
Dworking, R. (2012). Los derechos en serio. Ariel.
De Sousa Santos, B. (2009). Sociología jurídica crítica.Para unnuevo sentido común en el derecho. Trotta.
Freeman, M. D. A. (2011). Lloyd’s introduction to jurisprudence (8a ed., Reimpr.). Sweet & Maxwell.
Moreso, J. J. & Vilajosana, J. M. (2004). Introducción a la teoría del derecho. Marcial Pons.
Puigpelat, F. (Coord.) (1996). Teoria del dret. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya.
Riddall, J. G. (2008). Teoría del derecho. Gedisa.
Rodríguez-Palop, M. E. (2010), La nueva generación de derechos Humanos. Dykinson.
Ruiz-Resa, J. (2017). Teoría del derecho. Tirant lo Blanch.
Software
None
Language list
| Name | Group | Language | Semester | Turn |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| (TE) Theory | 1 | Spanish | first semester | morning-mixed |