Introduction to law LLB

 Subjects of a legal relations, which exists in a sphere we call legal reality are either private individuals, legal entities or corporate bodies which do not possess legal credibility.

 Is a person from the moment of birth until death (or recognised deceased).  Not every living natural person has full public rights and capacity to conduct civil law transactions in the specific state.  This is decided upon by the domestic law.  A natural person staying on territory of the specific state can be bound by this state through legal ties as a citizen or he will be considered a foreigner.

 Citizenship of a specific state is usually acquired by birth (original acquisition) or in a derivative manner (e.g. by being granted).  Acquiring citizenship by the original acquisition can take place in two variants: - as ius sanguinis (the law of blood) and - ius soli (the law of soil).

 A foreigner is a natural person who does not have the citizenship of the state on the territory of which he is staying.

 Established in the Maastricht Treaty.  Does not replace the citizenship of member states, but supplements them.  It is impossible to be a citizen of the European Union without being a citizen of a member state.

 A legal entity in the specific state is an independent subject of the law which is established for a particular purpose, generally having separate property at its disposal and bearing legal responsibility for its activities (usually financial liability).  A juridicial person operates through its authorities.  The status of a legal entity can be enjoyed by e.g. state enterprises, banks, companies, foundations, assosciates, political parties and local government units.

 Legal relations exists among a large number of other relations in a nowadays society: economical relations, moral relations, etc.  We can distinguish some attributes a legal relation has: - it is a realtion between subjects of law; - it is regulated by norms that indicate how the parties should act; - it belongs to the branch of social relations; - its execution is embraced by the official organs.

 The civil law names 3 main groups of legal relations: - unilaterial (f.e. a legal commission) - bilateral (most of agreements) - multilateral (company agreement, art.860 of polish civil code).  There are 2 fundamental rules within mentioned code: - the equality of the subjects and - the free will of the subjects, which consists of elements: a) deciding if one wants to create a legal relation b) choosing his contracting party and c) the realization ot the content of legal relation.

 Legal modality is a specific hallmark lawyers put on a subject’s act because of the legal norm it is connected with.  The legal doctrine points out several kinds of legal modality: - duty, which makes the subjects do something obligatory or do not something prohibited; - order, when a legal norm orders the subjects to act in a specific way; - prohibition, which, while performing a prohibited act, makes it impossible to commit the other act; - permission, which indicates that an act is not prohibited by a legal norm; - facultative, when an act is not mandatory; - indiferrent, when an act is facultative and permitted, which makes the subjects choose between committing and not committing it.

 Legal doctrine discerns 2 kinds of facts: - indifferent (for lawyers), since they are not subjects of legal norms and - relevant (they are important for the lawyers, since they trigger the use of legal norms).

 Facts = events and acts  Acts = actions and legal actions  Actions = in accordance with law and those not in accordance with law  The main difference between events and acts id basic: events happen without subject’s will, and acts are a result of his behavior.

 We can distinguish 2 separate acts: - conventional acts which require certain regulations which are to be found in legal norms and - other acts which don’t require any regulation to be committed although they may cause legal consequences.

 Legal facts create relations called legal relations. They are the main subject of civil law, since basically both subjects are individuals, who, by their actions create bonds. Such bond is a voluntary one, since it is the whole point of it to make the other subjects act in a particular way.

 Many events happen without subjects’ knowledge; such events are called legal events, particularly when the trigger some legal results (we can name e.g. natural disasters). The conduct of the subjects of the law relies either on actions or omissions.

 There are several particular sources for law to enture: - the systematic, - axiological, - behavioral or - thetic criterion.

 One can respect the law without accepting its rules within himself; we call such behavior an attitude of formal legalism.  Such viewpoint occurs because one doesn’t want to experience what is called an institutionalized sanction.  We can single out the opportunistic and conformist attitude. The first stnads for a behavior, when a person finds it useful/profitable for himself to respect the law, while the letter refers to person’s will to find acceptance within a group he belongs to.

 Equivalently to respecting the law, some break it, ergo: behave illegally. They mostly abuse their competences or they break the law while heading for an important achievement.

 One of the most important goals for a modern country to achieve is to make the society embrace the law and keep on learning it.  A particular citizen comes across legal norms in many different areas of interest: the official legal journals, mass media, legal service, inferences with the official state organs.  The official legal journals are an important factor, hence a broad area of conditions a formal publication must fulfill.

 We may distinguish 3 groups of information a citizen may find necessary to be acqusinted with: firstly, the most important pieces of information, which are needed by an average person, they form his social behavior, understanding of the social system; secondly, pieces of information affiliated with jobs that are needed to execute tasks well and amicably with legal norms; lastly, accidental pieces of information that are only required during some extraordinary events.